Positive Coaching Alliance Cites Bottom 10 Moments in Sports, 2008

Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) annually releases this list of the worst behavior in sports from pee-wees to the pros to stimulate discussion among parents, coaches, players and educators. The entire Bottom 10 list and Top 10 list, including links to media coverage of these incidents, appears at www.positivecoach.org/Bottom10.aspx, along with an excerpt from Positive Sports Parenting, the latest book by PCA Founder and Executive Director Jim Thompson, explaining how coaches and parents can help youth and high school athletes process the life lessons contained in the Bottom 10 and Top 10 Moments.

Positive Coaching Alliance’s Bottom 10 Moments in Sports, 2008

10. Former Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs pitcher Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams lives up to his nickname by cursing officials at his daughter’s fifth-grade CYO basketball game, leading the director of officials to say that if Williams “enters the gym…we will stop officiating.”

9. Suburban Portland, OR sheriff’s deputies rush to a sixth-grade girls basketball game that nearly turns into a riot after a coach is ejected, slams his clipboard, cutting a player and threatens a 17-year-old referee.

8. A minor league baseball brawl between the Peoria Chiefs and Dayton Dragons is lowlighted by a player attempting to throw a ball into the opposing team’s dugout, instead striking a fan, who was taken to the hospital.

7. On the same court that hosted the infamous Pistons-Pacers brawl, the highest-profile women’s sports brawl in U.S. history breaks out between the WNBA’s Detroit Shock and Los Angeles Sparks.

6. A 7-on-7 summer exhibition football game between two of South Florida's top high school teams, Pahokee and Miami's Booker T. Washington, devolves into a brawl, resulting in the hospitalization of a coach.

5. A Georgia high school baseball catcher is caught on video ducking under a pitch so that it smacks the mask of the umpire with whom the catcher was arguing.

4. In a post-game handshake line, a St. Louis-area youth football coach is caught on video violently shoving the face mask of an 11-year-old opponent.

3. Angered by an official’s call in an Olympic-medal taekwondo match, Angel Matos demonstrates his superior skill by kicking the official in the face.

2. In a dispute over playing time at a game for seven- and eight-year-olds, a Lubbock, TX soccer dad aims his gun at his daughter’s coach’s husband.

1. A Chicago high school volleyball coach is caught on video paddling players in practice for their on-court mistakes.

About Positive Coaching Alliance

Founded as a non-profit within the Stanford University Athletic Department in 1998, Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) has the mission of “transforming youth sports so sports can transform youth.” To that end, PCA has conducted roughly 6,000 live group workshops nationwide for more than 300,000 youth and high school sports leaders, coaches, parents and athletes. Workshop attendees have helped create a positive, character-building youth sports environment for more than 3 million youth athletes.

PCA’s partnership network includes more than 1,100 youth sports organizations, cities and schools. In 2008, PCA has conducted roughly 1,500 live, group workshops across the U.S., while assisting thousands of other individuals via online workshops at www.PositiveCoach.org.

PCA workshops train coaches to be Double-Goal Coaches®, whose first goal is winning and whose second, more-important goal is teaching life lessons through sports. PCA sports parent workshops cultivate “Second-Goal Parents,” who focus on life lessons through sports. PCA student-athlete workshops produce “Triple-Impact Competitors,” who work to improve themselves, their teammates, and their sport as a whole.

PCA has the support of elite coaches and athletes on a National Advisory Board, including National Spokesperson, Los Angeles Lakers Coach Phil Jackson; NBA and NCAA Champion Coach Larry Brown; Former University of North Carolina Basketball Head Coach Dean Smith; Kansas City Chiefs Head Coach Herm Edwards; Former Senator Bill Bradley; NBA Player Shane Battier; NFL Hall of Famers Ronnie Lott and Tony Dorsett; and Olympic Gold Medalists Jennifer Azzi, Ruthie Bolton, Nadia Comaneci, Bart Conner, Joy Fawcett, Dot Richardson, Summer Sanders and Kerri Strug.