A high school football coach in Wyoming recently crossed the line with a survey he gave to his players asking about their feelings.
Buffalo, Wyo. High School football coach Pat Lynch gave his players a survey entitled “Hurt Feelings Report” in which players on his team were asked to select from various offensive options to describe why they were upset.
He reportedly wrote the survey after players expressed being upset when he criticized them for not playing well.
Warning, the next few sentences are graphic, but they were some of the questions asked to players in the survey.
The survey, under a list of hurt feelings, included choices such as “I am a queer,” “I am a little bitch,” and “I have woman-like hormones.” The survey culminated by asking for the “girly-man signature.”
Thankfully, Lynch recognized his poor choice and resigned from his football job, but that cannot right this wrong.
He is a coach of young, impressionable men. He is a leader who is supposed to be teaching the importance of team work and how to succeed in life.
Unfortunately, Lynch forgot about this important part of playing high school sports. He, like many Americans, didn’t view his players as children, who are sensitive to criticism. He viewed his players as men who play a violent sport. That is the main problem with the survey, and that is a problem that needs to be fixed throughout the nation moving forward.
High school football players play one of the roughest sports in the world in which the goal is to stop another team from scoring by hitting and/or tackling an opposing team’s player as hard as one can. Violence is predicated by the need to win and the desire to stop your opponent, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that.
The problem, however, lies within coaches or adults who fail to see that the necessary violence is part of a contest, not part of reality. Football players are asked to be tough. They are asked to play through pain. They are asked to commit athletic acts that baseball and basketball players never have to consider. This is understandable, as it is the nature of the game, but when people like Lynch fail to separate the game’s nature from reality, it creates a bigger problem. When football players are taught at a young age that they are not allowed to feel basic human emotions because they will be deemed “sissies,” then they are not being allowed to fully develop as individuals.
Lynch had the right to question his team’s heart. He had the right to tell them to fight through adversity, and he had the right to be upset that they appeared to be buckling under pressure. After all, in the real world, the players will be faced with real challenges where they will need to call upon their football experiences to persevere.
He did not have the right, however, to compare them to women or gay people because he perceived their actions as cowardly. That perpetuates a stereotype that women and gays are weaker people who do not possess a “man’s strength” to deal with problems. Teachers and adults should never perpetuate that discriminatory stereotype. They should teach young people that each person has strengths and qualities that should be appreciated and respected. Never should they teach students that they are better than someone else because they are perceived to be tougher or stronger. That only creates problems in a progressive society and perpetuates ignorance.
Hopefully Lynch’s players are learning this lesson from their parents, and they now know that words such as Lynch’s should never be tolerated.
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Today’s editorial was written by Sports Editor Al Edwards on behalf of the Journal Tribune Editorial Board. Questions? Comments? Contact Managing Editor Kristen Schulze Muszynski by calling 282-1535, Ext. 322, or via e-mail at kristenm@journaltribune.com.
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