HS Athlete Drinking

carc wrote:

Coach Foo wrote:

It isn't an awkward situation any more. His primary concern is no longer athletics. If it were me (it has been before), I would meet with him (phone or face to face), state that he has not met your expectations, release him from the team for the season, and recommend that he improve his behavior. Offer to be there for him if he needs help, but he cannot run.

All these 'softie' approaches do nothing for him. He will not benefit from a bunch of adults acting helpless around him.

I've never understood the attitude that leads to kicking kids out of productive uses of their time for harmful misuses of their time. Now that they don't have this healthy diversion what do you think they're going to do? Go home and read Plato? They're going to go out and drink some more.

+1 x 1,000, You find out from a parent that a kid is engaging in normal teenager behaviour that is not healthy. So you decide to kick him out of the one positive healthy activity in his life - and you expect this will somehow magically make a kid stop behaving like a kid? Jesus wept. It should be obvious that you can only have a positive influence keeping him on the team, talking to him and having him train. If you want to cut him from the team, you might as well drive him to the liquor store and buy him a bunch of booze while you're at it.

Absolutely agree. Kicking him off the team will do no good. Especially as he has not done anything to harm the team from what I understand. Sit him down after the season and try to have a talk to him. If he can't handle that you can always reevaluate but just kicking him off the team for this would be ridiculous and counterproductive.

@Coach Fool: Screw your athletic handbook;)

The answer may not be kicking him off the team, but the screw the athletic handbook, kids will be kids approach is not the answer either. If the mother approached her son's coach with a concern that he is coming home drunk, that does not sound like a one-time, isolated incident. As a coach, I would report this, and any other known drinking, to the school counselor. It's not my job to determine if this is a one-time stupid behavior issue or the start of something more serious. People are also hurt and killed with lapses in judgement, one time or not.

It is not my job to the moral police of the world, but I also feel it is my moral, and possibly legal, obligation to make sure that someone with professional training can at least check in and talk with the student athlete. There are probably a variety of appropriate responses depending on the athlete and situation, but I would suspect that those saying to completely ignore it and let kids be kids have never been high school coaches, and are most likely not parents.

GORUN1600 wrote:

In my eyes you have two choices... the first is confront the kid right now and bench him from the race... the second is wait and do it after the big race... If any of your other athletes find out that you knew and did nothing your own authority on your team will be questioned... If you tell the athlete you found out after the race and it was too late to bench him you might be able to get away with it... think about the long term effects this could potentially have with younger athletes... what message does this send to them?

Once you have been informed of the behavior, you do need to take action. He was caught - by his mom. Yes, she should be the one doing the discipline, but once informed, you can't turn a blind eye to it. If underage drinking is an issue for you as a coach, you follow your team policy regardless of talent or affect on the upcoming meets. If it isn't a big issue to you, take it out of your team policy. If the district you work for mandates a penalty, then enforce it.

As stated, if you do nothing, you expose yourself as a weak coach who will enforce rules only when it doesn't affect outcomes. You'll lose your team pretty quickly.

On a side note, there was a parent of a football player in our school and knew her son was smoking marijuana. She went to the coaching staff and asked them to remove him from the team. so the first coach who saw him that day on campus stopped him in the cafeteria in front of everyone and told him to remove his jersey because this team didn't tolerate pot-heads. Mom knew what needed to be done, football team followed through - parent disciplined along with coaching staff setting the example. Win-win.

Coach Foo wrote:

Actually, teachers and school staff are mandated reporters. We are legally liable to report these behaviors and issues to the proper authorities.

Whether a teacher or coach chooses to report is up to them, but they ARE legally required to do so.

You're legally required to report things that you heard second hand from a source whose reliability is unknown to you? I'm pretty sure you're never required to report hearsay.

hearsay wrote:

Coach Foo wrote:

Actually, teachers and school staff are mandated reporters. We are legally liable to report these behaviors and issues to the proper authorities.

Whether a teacher or coach chooses to report is up to them, but they ARE legally required to do so.

You're legally required to report things that you heard second hand from a source whose reliability is unknown to you? I'm pretty sure you're never required to report hearsay.

A coach almost never catches a kid drinking directly. That is ridiculous.

The 'hearsay' is from the athlete's mother. She observed him drunk repeatedly.

This is not hearsay.

Coach Foo wrote:

hearsay wrote:

You're legally required to report things that you heard second hand from a source whose reliability is unknown to you? I'm pretty sure you're never required to report hearsay.

A coach almost never catches a kid drinking directly. That is ridiculous.

The 'hearsay' is from the athlete's mother. She observed him drunk repeatedly.

This is not hearsay.

Wow. You coach kids? It is exactly hearsay. You didn't see it, you are repeating what someone told you. That's hearsay. Idiot.

Coach Foo wrote:

Actually, teachers and school staff are mandated reporters. We are legally liable to report these behaviors and issues to the proper authorities.

Whether a teacher or coach chooses to report is up to them, but they ARE legally required to do so.

hearsay wrote:

You're legally required to report things that you heard second hand from a source whose reliability is unknown to you? I'm pretty sure you're never required to report hearsay.

Yes, actually. We are required to report hearsay. Especially if a child could be in danger as a result of not reporting. If you're unclear on this, you should re-visit your State-Required Mandatory Reporter training that all coaches (at least in my state) are required to take. It's quite clear on this point.

Or, if you're not a coach, stop assuming that you have a better understanding of our legal responsibilities than we do. There's a lot of things we do and know that you wouldn't expect.

Another Coach wrote:

Yes, actually. We are required to report hearsay. Especially if a child could be in danger as a result of not reporting. If you're unclear on this, you should re-visit your State-Required Mandatory Reporter training that all coaches (at least in my state) are required to take. It's quite clear on this point.

Or, if you're not a coach, stop assuming that you have a better understanding of our legal responsibilities than we do. There's a lot of things we do and know that you wouldn't expect.

I'm not going to look at the training, but if you want to cite the statute/case law, I'd be glad to read it. (Training on such topics usually doesn't reflect the actual law perfectly, and includes a lot of "here's how we think things should be done" without differentiating the law part from the advice part).

As far as I'm familiar, you are required to report suspected abuse or matters creating imminent danger. I would take "imminent danger" to mean suicidal ideation or something similar, not having a few beers at a party (the issue at hand already occurred, and being drunk last week can't present an imminent threat today). And I'm still not convinced that you're required to act on hearsay, but again, feel free to cite the law.

This sounds like a pretty cut and dry situation to me. Don't race him. You clearly have team rules, he broke them, hold him accountable. Plus, this is most likely a school/state rule. Ask your AD about what he/she would do in regards to having him on your team in the future.