Bad Kids or Bad Coaching? ASU Professor Aims to Change the Way Your Child Plays Sports

When your son or daughter swings a bat, shoots a basket, kicks a ball or slaps a hockey puck down the ice, are they becoming a better moral being? According to Arizona State University Exercise Science Professor Darren Treasure, maybe not.

In fact, they could be learning entirely the wrong lesson -- one that could have life-long repercussions. Treasure, who specializes in sport psychology, claims one of the keys to moral development in sports is coaching. More specifically, it is whether a coach establishes a motivational climate that defines success in mastery or performance oriented ways. Unfortunately, your child's coach might be one of many who are not up to par.

Coaching can make a big difference where your child's morals are concerned. Bad coaching -- coaching that emphasizes winning as the sole source of success (performance-oriented)-- can be dangerous, promoting dishonesty and selfishness. As Treasure states, "If winning is everything, an athlete will do anything to win."

Good coaching, on the other hand -- which emphasizes personal improvement and task mastery (mastery-oriented) -- can make sports and athletics one of the most effective moral tutors available to parents.

Treasure's concern over youth athletics led him to conduct a series of studies, one of which will be reported on in a forthcoming issue of Psychology of Sport and Exercise. The study involved 279 male soccer players, aged 12-14, participating in an international youth soccer tournament in Norway -- The Norway Cup. Treasure and his colleagues had the soccer players respond to questionnaires pertaining to perceptions of three main factors -- the motivational climate of their team, ideas of sportspersonship, and social-moral reasoning and behavior. They then used statistical analysis to see if there was any correlation between the three.

According to Treasure, statistical analysis of the collected data shows a definite link between mastery-oriented coaching, good sportspersonship and a well-developed set of morals. Players who perceived the climate as mastery-oriented preferred a mature moral motive for action on the field, wanting only to do what is fair or right, and were conscious of the needs of others. They were also less likely to report an intention to intimidate an opponent, fake an injury or risk injuring an opponent. They regarded their opponents primarily as co-creators of an experience, and competition as a process of striving with, not against, others.

By contrast, climate-profile analysis revealed that players who perceived a predominantly performance-oriented climate were those most likely to report hostility and engaging in illegitimate and unjust behavior toward other players. They employed egocentric moral reasoning when faced with social-moral dilemmas and suppressed empathy in order that victory could be pursued at any means necessary.

According to Treasure, these conclusions demand that parents and communities pay attention to the way youth athletics are coached, played and watched. This has inspired him personally to participate in activities outside the university.

Specifically, he has begun work with the Arizona Interscholastic Association in the implementation of "Pursuing Victory with Honor." This national program, funded in Arizona by a grant from the Arizona Department of Health Services, provides high school coaches and administrators with skills and strategies to develop sportspersonship in Arizona high schools. Based on the 16 principles of the Arizona Sports Summit Accord (see http://www.charactercounts.org/sports/accord.htm ), "Pursuing Victory with Honor" states that "sports can and should enhance the character and uplift the ethics of the nation," and outlines, among other things, that:

-- Participation in sports is a privilege, not a right, and that athletes and coaches have a duty to conduct themselves as role models, on and off the field.

-- The academic, emotional and moral well being of athletes always must be placed above desires and pressures to win.

-- Coaches and athletes must refrain from all forms of disrespectful conduct, including verbal abuse, taunting, trash-talking and unseemly celebrations.

-- The leadership of high school, youth and other sports programs must ensure that all coaches, paid or voluntary, are basically competent in character development techniques, first aid and principles of effective coaching.

-- Sports leaders should promote sportsmanship and foster the development of good character by teaching, enforcing, advocating and modeling six "pillars of character": trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and good citizenship.

With the support of Arizona Governor Jane D. Hull, Treasure and his colleagues hope that every high school in the state of Arizona will become a Pursuing Victory With Honor school and in so doing help develop student-athletes of character.

More information concerning the Arizona Interscholastic Association's Pursuing Victory with Honor program can be found at http://www.aiaonline.org or by contacting Chuck Schmidt of the AIA at (602) 385-3823.