When my daughter came to me in tears and complained coach is yelling at her, I explained this is a good thing. This means coach is looking at her and is trying to correct her mistakes.
> “I fall off the beam and land badly, and I’m hurting. The coach unleashes a torrent of curse words, yelling at me to get up again. I wait too long. ‘Get your butt up there right now or I’ll make you wish you had.’”
> “He grabs me by the throat with both hands and lifts me into the air by my neck ... I hear him clearing his throat, followed by the sound of spitting, and feel a thick glob splat into my face.”
Small kids are not as good as verbalizing what happens. Meaning, at the age when this all starts, they will not put it into words like this.
There is also strong cultural assumption that if coach is tough it is good. When kids are complaining, typically unable to explain exactly what the issue is, they are talked about as spoiled by helicopter parents or oversensitive moms.
So, even parents who eventually take their own kids away dont treat the whole thing as systematic abuse issue - they talked about it as personal preference of the kid.
> There is also strong cultural assumption that if coach is tough it is good.
There is some of that, but more a factor is that the measure of "good" is competitive success, and by that measure lots of tough -- even outright abusive -- coaches are good. You have to face that head-on to deal with the problem, that its not just a mistaken assumption of quality but often a flawed (because it does not view clear and visible verbal/emotional/physical abuse short of [but which can easily be a surface behind which hides] sexual abuse as a problem so long as success is achieved) but objective standard of quality.
It is really just not only that. Though is seen a good among some people even if results are not superior. You can't be widely incompetent, but beyond that there is a lot of subjectivity.
The actual competitive level will hurt either way, but the abuse itself is not actually raising performance.
If you look at Larry Nassar scandal, he did not had superior measurable results. He just created aura of superiority around him. Altrought he was not framing himself as tough, he pretended to be gentle doctor.
My niece competed in gymnastics at national level, just steps to be olympic competitor she started at i believe like 8 YO, her coach never yelled at her or any of the group other than in an encouraging way. There are bad and good coaches out there some of them leave their life for the sport.
Sometimes kids overwork their heart and coach is supposed to stop the kid to protect their health. Coach can't tell the kid in front of the group "You worked too hard, come stand here and rest", this would make the whole group to feign being overworked. Instead the coach is saying "You're not working hard enough, come here and stand in front of the group as a punishment for being lazy".
As a former educator, that is a horrible way to deal with that situation. The kid learns the wrong lesson and feels terrible about it. Lazy adult "solutions" like that can traumatize children.
The proper solution is just tell the kid to take a breather without stating a reason (maybe tell them privately how to notice on their own when they are overworking themselves). The other kids won't notice or care.
(And if some kid is looking for an excuse not to do the exercises... why are they even there? And who cares? It's an extracurricular, the point is to get out of it what you put in. It's not boot camp.)
Sure, they are there to be champions. And every girl goes to Cali to be a star. But at what cost and to what gain and at what odds are all questions parents need to consider. The article largely agrees that the way it’s done is according to the incentives. It’s the job of parents to say nope when the enterprise is to the detriment of the long term health of the child. Which is why I largely blame the parents not the coaches. The parents are PAYING for precisely this treatment and it’s grotesque.
First, you are literally punishing kid for being overworked, while claiming they are slackers are teaching them to overwork themselves even more next time.
The harder the kids try, the more the kid will be punished and claimed to be lazy.
Second, you are lying to the kids, they have no way to actually figure out rules.
Are you a professional coach or just think it would work this way?
The athletes we are discussing are already selected as fit for the specific sport. All of them are very tolerant to stress from the training and competition. Unless stress of not doing exercise (correctly) is higher than stress from doing it (correctly) there won't be progress.
What for an outsider looks like abuse, for athletes is within tolerable limits.
Selection is for physical capabilities (experienced coaches are actually looking at both parents in addition to child assessment). Stress tolerance is built up gradually as a side effect.
> “He grabs me by the throat with both hands and lifts me into the air by my neck ... I hear him clearing his throat, followed by the sound of spitting, and feel a thick glob splat into my face.”
You should read the article.