Spotlight: Coach should learn the Golden Rule – Peoria Journal Star

Joan M. Rice

The recent controversy surrounding the alleged behavior of Washington High School basketball coach Kevin Brown has raised more questions than answers.

Heavy-handed tactics that skirt the borders of acceptable social behavior send a message that such conduct is acceptable. His actions call to mind an especially abhorrent behavior: bullying. Is this a message we want our youth to accept and model?

Schools at all levels work hard to stem the verbal abuse that often transitions into bullying. It's even more difficult to justify when it comes from within the institution itself.

Very troubling, if true, was Coach Brown's reported disparagement of his players' abilities by saying they had just gotten "off of the short bus. In so doing he offended an entire population: those born with special needs. A public apology would be appropriate, along with a pledge to set a better example.

May I take a moment to place a new page in Coach Browns playbook? If he had done his due diligence perhaps by employing a student with special needs as team manager he would be impressed that this segment works twice as hard as those termed abled. Those with special needs often display negligible absenteeism rates. Studies by DuPont disclose that people with disabilities have better attendance rates than nondisabled workers. Additionally, many of these students graduate and further their education through the community college system and four-year institutions. When included in regular division classrooms, they raise the test scores of not only themselves but of nondisabled students, according to research by Kathleen Whitbread, PhD, as recently published in Wrightslaw.com.

These students graduate, hold down jobs, vote and pay taxes. If Coach Brown were to examine the issue more closely, he may even see those with disabilities executing complicated dance and ballet movements, walking door to door to collect for St. Jude, or swimming the butterfly at the Special Olympics. Those with special needs may be reading scripture in front of large congregations, or volunteering in hospitals and nursing homes.

Hubris traps many coaches who rack up winning seasons and records, only to lose it all to the cavernous flaws of their own humanity. Conversely, many students experience rapid maturity from freshman through senior years and become that shining light that make parents teary-eyed on graduation day.

The Washington School Board has given Coach Brown a second chance to relearn the gold standard of any kindergarten classroom: Treat others how you wish to be treated.

Joan M. Rice is a board member of the Peoria Regional Human Rights Authority. She lives in Morton.

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Spotlight: Coach should learn the Golden Rule - Peoria Journal Star