Background checks are needed for Travelball coaches

[Ken Krause]

Does it matter? The girl was underage and likely in the same range as the girls he was coaching softball. Just because the opportunity seems to have presented itself when he was acting as driving instructor doesn't make it any better that he was a softball coach with access to 10-14 other girls to potentially abuse.

Only for the fact that there have been plenty of other reports of softball coaches that were directly taking advantage of those positions. The act itself is heinous no matter what. But I just thought it was important to frame the discussion properly.

 

[Lilly'sDad24]

First year my DD played softball was in a recreational league from the city we live in.
Back ground checks come back on the coaches and the head coach had 11 charges with a few felony check fraud convictions in there.

 

[uncdrew]

There are different levels of background checks. I use them all the time in my work. Some are a half-page long, and some detail every single interaction with the court system (guilty or not), credit ratings, insurance claims, known affiliations, relatives, etc.. I've seen background checks as long as 50 pages. I'm not convinced the "a background check wouldn't have helped."

Also, while I agree that the parents need to be diligent, I am a bit concerned that we seem to be dismissing this horrible event with an admonishment of the parents. Its easy to Monday-morning quarterback this and suggest that they dropped the ball somehow, but if we're giving the organization the benefit of the doubt, let's do the same for the parents.

Please explain "known affiliations".

 

[FP26]

One more thing to watch is communications. When girls get older, it seems many coaches like to move to a 'communicate directly with the player' mentality. While this makes sense on some level -- the older player SHOULD be responsible for their own career, asking about playing time, knowing when practice is, not counting on their parents to fight their 'battles' for them, etc -- I think a good best practice is to include a parent (or all parents, ie, team messages) in all electronic communications, ie texting and email. There are group texting apps, some general and some specific to softball, that make this easier. Even a girl running late to practice can text the group vs. a single coach -- it gets the message around faster anyway. I implemented this as a coach; as a parent I'd demand it.

I'm curious what others think on this topic. I think it's critical.

When DD was in high school she played softball (4 years) and basketball (2 years). The coaches almost never communicated with the parents regarding anything, unless it was fund raising. All communication was coach/player only.

In travel ball we typically set up group texts. At the younger ages we would include everyone in one big text. Mostly because we knew our 12u team was not driving themselves to practice At 18u we switched to two groups. One included all players and coaches while the other included the parents. This came by request of the parents, by the way, as some were tired of receiving all of our texts, especially when the players started adding replies. It wasn't uncommon to see 100+ texts in one day... At 23u, we barely communicated with the parents at all. But at that age many of our players were not only driving themselves to practice and to tournaments, but some were arranging their own hotel rooms. A lot of parents still attended the tournaments so we always sent them the game schedule.

 

[FP26]

I have coached softball (rec, travel, and high school), soccer (AYSO), and basketball (rec and CYO). I was required to have a background check for every team I ever coached. Some were state checks, some were federal checks. I'm not sure they are the best checks available, but they were checks, and I received certification for each one.

I do agree with others that state that a coach should never be alone with a player. I always did my best to avoid that. Unfortunately some parents make this challenging. When I coached rec ball, sometimes I felt more like a babysitter than a coach. Some parents would dump their kids at practice and then show up later to pick them up. In most cases they were there at the agreed upon time, and I did my best to not delay them. Unfortunately, some parents were not that responsible. I can remember a few dozen times when practice has ended, and the child's parents are no where to be found. If another coach was present, I would ask them to stay while we waited for the parent to arrive. I was always coaching DD's team, so she always stayed and waited. In some cases I would ask another parent to stay and wait with me. Sometimes we were sitting there for an hour waiting for the child's parents to show up. Worse yet, I was asked to drive some players home because the parents were "too busy to pick them up". But I always had someone else with me when this happened. I obviously didn't want to just leave the player at the field by themselves...

 

[GoGamecocks]

Please explain "known affiliations".

Varies by background check. Sometimes they list people who are related to you, who live at the same address, who are your neighbors. Most of the modern background checks have AI algorithms that pull this information from various publicly-available sources. Of course if you hire a professional to do a "real" background check, the report would include information obtained by interviews of friends, neighbors, co-workers, and law-enforcement.

 

[ian]

My HS Varsity basketball coach/English teacher made us shower after every practice and game. He wouldn't shower with us, he sat in the coaches office with the blinds drawn. On day I swear I saw the blinds move when I glanced over. The year after I graduated he was arrested for doing something to one of his players at the HS.

The catholic church gets lots of publicity but children are 100 times more likely to be sexually assaulted at public schools.

Last year at my DD's (former) high school one of the teachers had a two year 'relationship' with a troubled student who lived with her and her husband. When the student got a girlfriend his own age, the teacher threatened the boy by saying she would claim rape if he didnt break up with his new GF, all on text messages! GFs parents saw the messages and reported it. Nothing happened because the boy turned 18 a few months ago. Her husband was my daughters softball coach and AD.

I don't trust anyone around my children. Coaches and Teachers who are vocally anti-parent are watched even closer.

There are different levels

A LONG time ago I played AAU basketball for this guy:

Police Log: January 13, 2001

PORTSMOUTH — Police made the following arrests and conducted the following business from Jan. 10-Jan. 12: Jan. 10: 7:48 a.m.? Did a well-being check on Peirce Island. 9:19 a.m.? Took a report o…

www.southcoasttoday.com

After practice he would make us shower, whether we wanted to or not, so he could shower with us.
We would all shower in one corner, including Chris Herren (may have seen him on ESPN of late documenting his struggles with addiction), while Tavares would be in the other. We knew he was a pervert so we kind of all stuck together..not smart but we were 13 or 14 so we thought we could handle it ourselves.