Last night I was wat
ching a basketball game on TV with my kids and a commercial came on for a new TV series called “Coaching Bad”. Spike TV is teaming up with Ray Lewis to “shine a light on the ever-growing issue of coaches and their anger issues”, according to network executive Sharon Levy.
Watching some of the footage in the ad, my oldest son looked at me and said something like, “That’s unbelievable. Dad, you have what you need for your next blog post.”
This isn’t news to most of us, but how insane is it that we live in a country that struggles with an ever-growing issue of Coaches and anger issues related to their coaching? Without having seen the show (that debuts on February 8th), I guess I applaud Spike TV and Ray Lewis for bringing attention to this issue, presumably showing us “what not to do” and trying to help people in need.
At the same time, all of this just makes me shake my head and ask once again, what in the world are we doing? How far do we have to fall as a society and athletic culture before we wake up and stop using sports to puff up adults while damaging kids? Part of me wants to watch “Coaching Bad”, imagining that I will be encouraged by the Coaches who are being helped to grow and change. The rest of me feels like I ought to stay away to keep from seeing footage of angry Coaches that might make my head explode.
Stay tuned.
I hope you watched. It was definitely interesting and hopefully the show will be focused on these coaches making positive changes in their lives so that they can make positive coaches in the many lives they touch as a coach.
Thanks for the comment, Brian! The show is almost hard to watch because the antics make you cringe, but if the coaches see how off they are then hopefully that will lead them to change for the better.