All too often a youth sports story comes across my desk which reads more like the script for a made-for-television movie a story, which if it weren't true, I might have found hard to believe.
Over the winter sports season, my e-mail box has been flooded with youth sports horror stories from every corner of the nation. Most have a common theme: Hockey players who have been psychologically or emotionally abused by their coaches.
What follows is a cautionary tale that, I am sad to report, highlights so many of the things that need fixing in youth sports; issues I have been writing about (or would banging my head against the wall in frustration be more apt?) for the past twelve years, problems that don't seem to be getting any better, unfortunately.
Ostensibly, it is the story of a team of nine-year old hockey players in a Boston suburb, their coach, a former high school baseball coach and local sports hero, the all-male board of directors of the town's hockey club, a hockey mom concerned about her kids emotional well-being, and, at center ice, a set of adorable, identical, competitive, but sensitive twin boys who became, as is all too often the case in the adult-centered world of youth sports, the unintended but innocent victims of a real life power play.
If you are a hockey mom or dad, especially if you live in the Boston area, you may have already figured out that this is the story of the Foglietta family of Salem, Massachusetts, Bill and Holly, and their twins, Austin and William. You may have read about it in the newspaper, heard about it on talk radio, or seen it on television. The stories were so numerous, they were hard to miss.
But, having spent countless hours talking to Holly, at least trying to talk to some of the other principal players in this saga, pouring over a pile of e-mails, the USA Hockey codes of ethics and of conduct, Mass Hockey's disciplinary rules, and USA Hockey's Annual Guide, I am sure of one thing: this is a story which, while it has sparked controversy, and is likely to generate even more, needs to be told in all of its detail to fully appreciate just how complete a window it provides into at least one little corner of the world of youth hockey, if not youth hockey and youth sports in general.
It is a story which, in its telling, offers lessons for all the stakeholders - parents, coaches, administrators, and state and national sports governing bodies, in this case USA Hockey - and cries out for action to be taken to stem and control, if not completely eliminate the emotional and psychological abuse that is, all too often, being inflicted on the children of this country in today's ultra-competitive, adult-centered youth sports.
In March 2011, Holly Foglietta registered her nine-year-old twins, Austin and William, for the Lynn/North Shore Comets Squirt (2001 and 2002) thirty-game travel season. As is typical in hockey-crazy Massachusetts, the twins were already hockey veterans; the season would mark their fourth in organized hockey, which began in Instructional Mite, progressed through Mite, and now a second season in Squirts.
On the morning of Saturday, January 21, 2012, with a little more than a minute remaining in a Valley League Hockey game in Tewksbury between the Comets and the '01 Boch Blazers, and with the Comets leading 4-2, Austin scored. He and his brother, who everyone acknowledges to be very competitive (and what kid isn't these days?), had been keeping track of their goals since they started in Mites when they were five, and Austin's goal was a milestone: his 200th. Austin asked the ref if he could have the puck as a souvenir.
What happened next depends on who you believe in this sorry saga. According to Austin and William, and their father, Bill, when the coach, Bill Norcross of Lynn, realized that Austin had received permission from the referee to keep the puck, he began screaming at him, yelling "Ridiculous, ridiculous, that's the most selfish thing I have ever seen." Norcross then allegedly took the puck away from Austin and threw it back on the ice, and continued to verbally demean Austin in front of his teammates, including allegedly telling him he wasn't even the best player on the team.
Bill Foglietta would later tell the local paper, the Lynn Daily Item, that what the coach did "broke my son's heart and he did it publicly. It just tore me up inside." Austin told the newspaper that he felt "shocked and then I started to get scared" when Norcross began yelling at him, so much so that he didn't want to go into the locker room with his brother after the game, where, according to what William told his father, and later his mom, Holly, Norcross continued yelling, and allegedly threw a bag of pucks at William (which missed).
For his part, Norcross and two of his assistant coaches told a different story. Interviewed for a February 10, 2010 story [1] in the Daily Item, they said that the incident simply didn't happen as the twins' parents allege. Norcross vehemently denied throwing the souvenir puck back on the ice (he said he tossed a different puck), denied yelling at Austin on the bench or dressing him down in front of his teammates, denied raising his voice, and denied throwing a bag of pucks at or near Austin's twin brother.
When I attempted to speak to Norcross to comment for this article, I was told that I had caught him at a bad time (he said he was picking up his kids at school), but he promised to call right back. Instead, it was his attorney, Kevin Foley, who called me back less than five minutes later, not to provide any factual information (he refused comment) but to warn me, not once but three times, to "be very careful" in what I wrote. In other words, instead of being helped as a journalist get at the truth, I ended up being bullied.
Other eyewitnesses told varying versions of the incident. An assistant coach recalled that when the referee came to the bench and asked for a puck after Austin scored the goal he heard Norcross say "You got to be kidding me" and mutter under his breath, "Oh my God, I've been in sports a long time. I'm trying to teach team play and I've never seen that before." He denied that Norcross threw any bags or yelled when the team was in the locker room.
A second assistant coach attacked Holly for allegedly being an overbearing hockey mother who, he claimed, had at times tried to interfere with the way the coaches ran the team (a somewhat testy back and forth of emails between Holly and Norcross early in the season about the twins' playing time at forward and defense, with the benefit of hindsight, likely foreshadowed the fireworks to come). The coach denied that either Norcross or any other adult yelled at Austin when the referee came over to the bench to ask for a puck to replace the one that Austin had used to score his 200th goal, and he went so far as to suggest that the Fogliettas had made up the story out of whole cloth.
Unlike his fellow assistant coach, however, he admitted to yelling in the locker room after the game, but said nothing was thrown, and, in a comment which spoke volumes about the culture of youth hockey, chalked up the yelling to the fact that, "We are hockey coaches. Do we yell? Yeah, we do, but it's no different than any other sport. We told them they could have played better."
One mother of a player on the team was brave enough to tell the newspaper that she did hear Norcross screaming at Austin, saying that she noticed that the referee had given the puck to Austin after he scored, and that "when they were going back to center ice ... I could see the referee talking to Bill [Norcross] and that's when I saw Bill pick up the puck and throw it on the ice" and start screaming.
Another mom, according to Holly, said she would have spoken up, but feared - with good reason, as it turned out - retaliation against her son if she did. Whether the mom will, as Holly claims, "have plenty to say after the season is over" remains to be seen. She declined to be interviewed for this article.
A father of another player recalls seeing Norcross talking to the referee, and, while he didn't hear or see him say anything to Austin, acknowledged that Norcross was an "intense coach" who had been yelling at the referee about calls all through the game. "He yells at the kids when they need to be yelled at, he sits them down when they need to be sat down. I have no problem with any of his tactics," he said.
The wife of a member of the Lynn Youth Hockey (LYH) Board, and vocal supporter of Norcross, told the newspaper that she didn't see or hear any yelling.
Holly was in New Hampshire that Saturday morning, but remembers getting a call from Austin around noontime as Bill was driving the twins home from the game in which he tried to explain through his tears what had happened. Austin was crying and so upset, she had a hard time understanding a lot of what he said. Holly then briefly spoke to her husband, who told her about the incident, and said he was taking the boys out for a special lunch to make up for the emotional morning.
The next morning the twins played a game in Ashburnham. Bill Foglietta had been lead to believe by Norcross' assistant coach, Kevin Cassidy, that, after the Saturday game, the coach was in a "bad way", had given him all the equipment and game labels, and told Cassidy he wasn't going to be at the game. Bill Foglietta took the twins to the game only because he didn't think Norcross would be there. When he saw the coach coming in to the rink, he held the door open for him and asked if they could talk, but Norcross put his hands in front of his face and just walked away.
Later that day, following the Patriots win in the AFC Championship game, the family finally had a chance to talk about the incident, during which William mentioned for the first time the alleged puck throwing. Bill Foglietta explained how he had attempted to speak with Coach Norcross at the Sunday morning game in Ashburnham, but that he had refused to talk. Holly then tried to open the lines of communication herself by sending Norcross a text in which she explained how completely heart-broken she was about how he had treated her sons and how upset they were.
When she received no response, Holly texted Steve Patrie, a Lynn Youth Hockey Vice President who had a son on the team, requesting the opportunity to talk to him as a friend. Patrie was sympathetic and said it might be a good idea to sit and talk. He said that, while he had not been at the game, his wife was there. When Holly posted a comment about the incident on Facebook, his wife's comment had been "TERRIBLE!"
The next morning, January 23, 2012, Holly sent a text to Patrie advising him that, as the family had been unable to resolve the issue directly with Coach Norcross, she was going to register a complaint with the Lynn Youth Hockey board. Patrie texted back that he understood.
In a lengthy e-mail to the board, she then recounted the incident as it was told to her, including her husband's multiple, unsuccessful attempts to speak with Norcross, and, in language that would become the centerpiece of the upcoming battle, stated that, in her view, "the way he treated my boys this weekend could be looked at as borderline child abuse." She closed the e-mail by requesting the Board's assurance that Norcross would be spoken to and that her sons would not be retaliated against.
In an e-mail that morning, the board's President responded by stating that he was "truly sorry this is making you feel the way you do", that a Board meeting was scheduled for that evening, and that he would make sure Holly's complaint was discussed. In a follow-up e-mail to Holly that afternoon, another Board member promised that would talk to Norcross that evening, acknowledged that there may have been a lack of communication between parent and coach, which had allowed things to "brew and explode," and expressed the hope that the matter could be "resolved in a positive way."
When Holly sent that board member an e-mail the next morning asking whether anything had come out of his meeting with Coach Norcross, he replied that Norcross was "unhappy with the accusations" and stated that the board would be meeting with Norcross, other coaches, and perhaps other parents, if needed, to discuss the situation and possible options for the remainder of the season.
The e-mail left Holly, according to her e-mail response, "shaking" and "completely sick" over the possibility that the Board would believe the coach's version of what happened over what her husband and the twins had witnessed, and she expressed concern that, because she had gone over the coach's head to the board, he would treat them differently for the rest of the year. She made it clear, however, that, based on what she had been told had happened, she was not going to allow her boys in the locker room with Coach Norcross alone.
The board member responded by e-mail in which he indicated that Coach Norcross had requested an opportunity to speak with the Board, because the Board needed to hear both sides in order to "create a solution." He cautioned, however, that, given the terminology that had been used - presumably, Holly's allegation that the coach's conduct could be viewed as "borderline child abuse" - arriving at such a solution was not going to be "an easy task," but, at least at that point, said the Board will still "hoping for a positive solution."
Those hopes were soon dashed. On the morning of Thursday, January 26, 2012, Holly sent an e-mail to a board member advising him that the twins had practice that evening, which both she and her husband planned on attending, and expressing concern about how Coach Norcross was going to treat them.
The board member responded two hours later with an email in which he recommended against going to practice because the situation was still, in his view, "far too hot to be going back into the fire." He went on to state that the Board, without hearing from or sitting down with the Fogliettas, had decided to back Norcross. Based on what he said was the strong support Norcross had from other coaches and many parents, he said the board felt it best if the Foglietta twins were removed from the team and dropped down to the B team for the remainder of the season. It was an "option" which, unbeknownst to the Fogliettas, both MassHockey and the Valley League, one of the two leagues in which the Lynn Comets played, had apparently already said they would not permit, but, in any event, the suggestion was quickly rejected by Holly.
In the early afternoon that day, Holly, in hopes of salvaging what was rapidly escalating into all-out war, and at the urging of a Board member and the team's assistant coach, Cassidy, sent an e-mail to Coach Norcross in which she extended an olive branch, apologizing for the "borderline child abuse" comment, which, she said, came from her "heart after watching Austin crying over how badly you hurt his feelings." She was sure - or at least hoped - that "any mother would react with the same passion" as she did. Holly expressed the hope that her sons would be able to finish the season with their teammates, and offered to stay away from practices and sit quietly in the stands for the remaining games.
The next morning, Bill Foglietta sent Coach Norcross a text message in which he likewise expressed regret that things had gotten so out of hand, admitted that Austin had violated the team concept by calling attention to himself when he asked for the puck, but essentially begged the coach to let the boys finish the year with their friends, to, as he said, "put the kids first."
At 4:45 p.m. on Friday, January 27, 2012, the other shoe dropped. After what it said were several days investigating and discussing the Fogliettas' "serious and troubling comments and accusations of ‘borderline child abuse'" against Norcross, the Board advised the family that it had found "no evidence" to support her comments and accusation of child abuse, confirmed that Norcross would remain as coach, and that, as a result, it was "in the best interest of all parties involved that the relationship between the Foglietta's [sic] and Lynn Youth Hockey be terminated."
The next day, Saturday, January 28th, Holly responded. "Pretty sad," she began her e-mail, "that the Board has decided this is more about the coaching staff than the children/players." She expressed disappointment that the Board didn't appear to have gotten the complete story, that none of the other parents or players were apparently asked to give statements or were interviewed - some of whom she said were prepared to sign sworn statements, along with their children, about what had happened that day in and out of the locker room - and that neither she, her husband nor her children, unlike Norcross, had been afforded the opportunity to meet with the Board before it decided to side with the coach. In short, she said, the Board, "took Norcross's word over two scared little children."
On February1, 2012, Jeffrey Brown, the Chair of the MassHockey Discipline Committee, provided Holly with a link to the web page containing the organization's bylaws relating to the disciplinary procedures that applied to Lynn Youth Hockey, its players, coaches, officials and parents, volunteers and spectators.
On the very first page, under the heading "THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT RULES", it states, as the first rule, that "Disciplinary action may be taken only AFTER a hearing by the appropriate disciplinary authority following specific rules and procedures." A disciplinary hearing was mandatory "for any alleged violations of any rules and/or policies including but not limited to: Zero Tolerance [and] Codes of Conduct." Written notice of the disciplinary hearing - to be comprised of a chairman and 3 or 5 "reasonably independent and objective" persons" (e.g. no close friends of any of the parties) - needed to be provided seven days in advance of the hearing, provide reasonable notice of the grounds for proposed discipline (such as "You have been charged with violation of ...."), and state the names of any witnesses that would be called. It expressly allowed lawyers to represent parties at the hearing.
Two days later, on Friday, February 3, 2012, Lynn Youth Hockey began covering its tracks. After apparently learning from MassHockey that it needed to conduct a hearing before kicking the family out of the program, the LYH board president notified Holly that a hearing, after-the-fact, would take place on Wednesday, February 8th, just five days later. When Holly responded that the scheduled date was inconvenient because her husband - a fireman - had a shift that day and she wanted to be sure her attorney could attend, she was told the attorney could not attend.
Holly responded with a blistering e-mail insisting that the family's attorney would attend, that LYH had expelled her sons in violation of MassHockey rules requiring a hearing before any disciplinary action was taken, asked to be advised as to the exact rule the twins had violated which led LYH's unilateral decision to kick them off their team and expel the family from Lynn Youth Hockey, and asked for the names of the individuals who would be serving on the Disciplinary Committee. She said that Austin and William would be at their respective Saturday games, and that she expected that they would be allowed to practice and play as usual and treated courteously and fairly by Coach Norcross. She also demanded that a separate hearing be held in accordance with MassHockey rules to consider discipline of Coach Norcross for alleged violations of the Coach's Code of Ethics in the way he treated Austin and William.
In an email later that night LYH offered either Monday, February 6 or Friday, February 10 as hearing dates, but not only continued to insist that a hearing would not be held if the Fogliettas' attorney was present, but that, "as of now, the Board decision stands, and until we have a hearing, your sons will not be able to play. You have made a serious accusation against a coach regarding your sons, which was not corroborated. I repeat, you are the one who made the accusation." Conspicuously absent from the e-mail was a response to any of Holly's other demands.
Holly responded that evening that the February 10th was okay for the hearing, and added the following postscript:
Only reason my accusations were not corroborated was because you never interviewed any parents except for assistant coaches and we were never allowed a hearing.... Be fair here... But then again ... judging by the way you dismissed my boys ... nothing seems quite fair in the eyes of the children .... sad that the morale of the Squirt A team is pretty evident when children are texting my boys with their support and sadness ... maybe them not winning a game since this happened is a good indication as to the feelings of the kids right now on the team ... but I forgot .. it isn't about the kids playing the game .. it is about the men behind the bench.
Two days later, on Tuesday, February 6, 2012, Holly e-mailed LYH again (this time including MassHockey and, for the first time, reporters at the Daily Item among the recipients), expressing dismay at the fact that her sons had already been replaced on their team's roster with two players moved up from the Squirt B squad, suggesting that the upcoming hearing was "just to go through the motions" now that MassHockey had told the board that it needed to conduct a hearing, expressing concern that they wouldn't be "listening to my husband and myself or my children about the [alleged] emotional and physical abuse" she claimed they had suffered at the hands of Coach Norcross, and that "it all seems quite evident that our claims will not be looked at subjectively [sic] even though we have parents and children [who] can support our claims (even text messages from the other assistant coach [who] was present that tells us that Coach Norcross was in a "DARK PLACE" that morning in the locker room). At this point if we can't bring our attorney ... why have a hearing? I really hope that when you get other complaints regarding this coach you don't just sweep them under the carpet like this one!"
Two hours later, after MassHockey had advised LYH that the Fogliettas were entitled to have their lawyer present at the hearing, and learning that her sons were entitled to participate with their team - a fact that Attorney Brown of MassHockey said in an e-mail to Holly he had made "very clear" to the LYH Board president, Holly sent LYH another e-mail (copy to Brown) in which she "wondered how William and Austin will get a fair hearing on this matter at this point" when it appeared that their names were removed from the team roster on the LYH website "almost immediately after" she complained about Coach Norcross's behavior. She said it "was heart breaking to my boys because they still don't know what they did [wrong]." She also wondered whether the committee appointed for the hearing would be objective if it included the Board president and two board members who, she claimed, had already made up their mind by announcing to both the Squirt A and B teams the previous weekend that her sons were being replaced. She closed by observing that it was a "sad situation that literally could have been resolved with a conversation that day to which the coach refused repeated requests. When we felt we had no recourse, we sought the Board's assistance." She wondered whether "anyone consider[ed] the effect on my boys and their emotional state after the game that day?"
LYH soon backed off of its insistence that the Fogliettas' lawyer not attend the hearing, but continued to insist that "no decision ha[d] been made to move players up to the Squirt A team", which prompted an e-mail from Holly suggesting that perhaps the Board president, because he wasn't at the games the previous weekend, should speak to the parents of both A and B teams, because it was her understanding that they were told that two players, who she identified by name, had played their last game with the B team and were moving to the A team. In defiance of clear instructions from MassHockey's Brown to the LYH Board president that the Foglietta twins be allowed to participate with their team at Thursday's practice and Saturday game pending the hearing, the Board president advised the family that the "board's decision stands until we have the hearings, and the hearing decision is made."
In response to Holly's follow-up e-mail in which she asked whether that meant that, if her boys came to practice on Thursday they wouldn't be allowed to practice "even though Attorney Brown made it perfectly clear that they are able to play/participate," and renewing her request for the names of those appointed to the discipline committee, which the MassHockey disciplinary rules stated needed to be "reasonably independent and objective" and provided to the parties along with notice of the hearing, the Board president said "there will be no reversal, or discussions regarding a reversal of the board decision to terminate until the hearings" and that he would e-mail the names of those who would be on the panel when Holly confirmed that Friday would be the hearing date.
The next day, February 7, 2012, the Fogliettas were advised that the issue to be presented to the disciplinary committee was whether "Holly Foglietta's conduct warranted the terminated of the Foglietta's [sic] from Lynn Youth Hockey" but did not specify what rule or policy she was alleged to have violated. They discipline committee, they were told, would consist of the board president and three board members, all of whom had participated in the decision to terminate the club's relationship with the Foglietta family (later re-characterized as a "suspension" pending hearing).
Contacted by the Daily Item for its article [1] published on February 10, 2012, the day of the hearing, two of the three board members slated to conduct the hearing made it clear that they had already decided where they stood on the matter, not only offering their support for Norcross, but directly speaking out against Holly. One was not only a LYH board member, but a parent whose son played on the team and a close friend of Norcross. Another had allegedly sent a text to Bill Foglietta telling him in no uncertain terms to never text, e-mail or talk to him again, and whose wife, interviewed by the newspaper, not only said she did not hear any yelling or screaming, but spun Austin's refusal to join his brother in the locker room after the game as stemming, not from being yelled at and emotionally abused by the coach in front of his teammates on the bench, as he had told his parents, but because he was "embarrassed because the game was stopped so he could get his puck." She laid blame for the entire incident at Holly's doorstep, charging her of making "serious and untrue accusations" and of starting the problem in the first place by complaining about one of her sons having to play defense (an indication that the coaches had shared with her, or at least told her, about the exchange of e-mails between Holly and the coaching staff in October 2011).
At 11:35 a.m. on the morning of February 10, 2012, just a little over seven hours before the disciplinary hearing was scheduled to begin, Holly was notified that one of the Board members on the discipline committee (the one who had allegedly sent text messages to Bill Foglietta instructing him not to ever contact him again), would be replaced by a coach who was represented to be a Bantam coach with no children in the program, but who was not listed anywhere on the LYH coaches list.
At 3:06 p.m., with the hearing scheduled to begin in less than four hours, a fourth member was added to the panel, a man who, according to Holly, shared practice ice time every week with Coach Norcross and was friendly with him and the other Squirt A coaches.
Then, shortly before the hearing began, the last member of the original disciplinary committee, Steve Patrie, the LYH Vice President and a parent of a player on the Squirts A team, recused himself.
At the hearing, the hastily-reconstituted panel heard from Bill Foglietta and his two sons. After the hearing, the Fogliettas' attorney, Gary Zerola of Boston, told the Daily Item that he didn't hold out much hope that the twins would be reinstated: "I find it very hard to believe that they're going to overrule the board of the organization that they're all supporting or working for."
Zerola also said he objected to the very premise of the hearing. "It should not be Holly Foglietta's conduct but Coach Bill Norcross' conduct. They want to make this about Holly. Holly made a complaint to Lynn Youth Hockey. All she did was repeat what her son told her. When you have a young man who makes an allegation of abuse, verbal or physical ... what you do by punishing the kid is that you chill every kid's possibility of reporting potential abuse. The age we live in is tell, tell, tell." "I miss my friends," William admitted to the paper. "But the coaches were mean."
On Saturday, February 11, 2012, when the Lynn Comets Squirt A travelled to nearby Revere for a 9 a.m. game, Austin and William were not with the team. A player who was, the son of the only parent willing to speak on record for the February 10th Item article that she heard Norcross screaming at Austin, saw his playing time substantially reduced, which left him in tears after the game and prompted a complaint by his mother directly to the LYH Board president in attendance at the game. Holly later learned from a neighbor whose son played for another area select hockey team which scrimmaged the Comets the next day that the mom who supported the Fogliettas' version of events was allegedly not even told that scrimmage was taking place.
On Monday, February 13, 2012, the second day of hearing was held. In attendance were Coach Norcross, his wife, his lawyer, and the members of the panel. Despite later stating that it "heard from" assistant coach Cassidy and players from the team, the sign-in sheet for the hearing does not contain the name of any parents, players or assistant coaches.
The next day, a second article [2] appeared in the Daily Item, largely about a group of parents expressing support for Coach Norcross and blaming the whole affair on Holly Foglietta.
On Wednesday, February 15, 2012, a third article [3] appeared in the Daily Item in which two youth sports coaches who had coached the Foglietta twins expressed their opinion that Norcross had mishandled what should have been a non-issue.
Nick Galeota, who coached William and Austin for two years in Salem Little League, told the newspaper that he couldn't believe Austin's decision to ask to keep a puck had led to the kids being suspended from the league because Holly had filed a complaint with LYH.
While he conceded that the twins were "two of the most competitive boys" he coached, he said he routinely handed out game balls to players who hit home runs during a game and didn't understand why Norcross allegedly yelled at Austin for wanting the puck used to score his 200th goal as a souvenir.
"If I had a kid get a puck and I had a problem with it, which I don't, I would have pulled the parents and child aside after the game privately, and not in front of anybody else, and talked about it," he told the paper.
"Why are the kids suspended? I don't understand it," he said. "This is something the kids are going to remember for the rest of their lives."
A second coach, Ricky Mayne, the longtime coach of an area "select" hockey team on which the boys had played for two years and for whom Holly Foglietta acted as team mom, defended her actions.
Dealing with parents, and hockey moms in particular, Mayne told the paper, is part of the job for any hockey coach.
"I've had mothers say worse stuff to me, believe me," Mayne said. "All this woman did was stick up for her sons."
Like Galeota, Mayne criticized Norcross' alleged reaction to Austin asking the referee for the puck. "He's a 9-year-old kid. To do what he (Norcross) [is said to have done] is crazy." He called the twins "great kids," an assessment with which Norcross' attorney agreed.
On February 18, 2012, the head of the LYH disciplinary committee advised the Fogliettas' attorney by e-mail that it had decided unanimously that the "allegations of child abuse" made by Holly were "unsubstantiated" and affirmed the prior board decision to end the relationship with the Foglietta family, and that a written decision would be provided on or before February 23rd. The e-mail made no mention of the grounds for such draconian action.
That same day Holly heard from another parent that Coach Norcross had been removed from the bench at the game at Merrimac College because he wasn't certified, although she wasn't told by whom the action had been taken. The USA Hockey website shows that Norcross's certification expired on December 31, 2011 for failing to complete the course required to coach at the Squirt level. (His attorney later said he was in the process of being re-certified.) The names of one of Norcross' assistant coaches, as well as a number of other assistant coaches and one head coach of other LYH teams, did not even appear on the USA Hockey coaches list.
On February 23, 2012, the LYH Discipline Committee issued its written decision. It framed the issue as a question of whether Holly Foglietta had violated its Zero Tolerance Policy in accusing Norcross of "Borderline Child Abuse", an alleged violation that was not mentioned as a basis for the Board's earlier decision to sever all ties with the Foglietta family or in any of LYH's communications with Holly leading up to the hearing.
The panel went on to say that, after obtaining phone and in-person interviews from the coaches and other parents present at the rink that day - none of whom, besides Norcross, testified at the actual hearing or from whom written statements were, as far as the Fogliettas know, ever received - it had concluded that the claims against Norcross "could not be substantiated."
Apparently central to the panel's thinking were the fact that the boys were present the next day at another game, and both dressed in the locker room (which occurred only because the Fogliettas had been lead by assistant coach Cassidy to believe that Norcross would not be at the game that day), Holly's January 26 e-mail apology to Norcross (suggested by a board member), and the fact that had Holly had alerted the local paper to the controversy, which it characterized as the pursuing of a "parallel track of making other allegations against Mr. Norcross in the [news]paper" (conveniently omitting the fact that Holly did not contact the newspaper until February 6th, a full week after her confidential e-mail to the board, more than two weeks after the initial incident, and long after the horse - in this case the severing of Lynn Youth Hockey's relationship with the Fogliettas - was out the barn door. Considered in its totality, the panel said, Holly's conduct constituted what it characterized as "an incredible breach of the zero tolerance policy." The panel claimed that it considered all possible options short of terminating the program's relationship with the Foglietta family, but had concluded that termination was the only viable solution.
Needless to say, the decision was front page news [4] in the Daily Item. The Fogliettas' attorney promised an appeal to MassHockey, not because he expected LYH would put the twins back on the team but "so other children who play for Lynn Youth Hockey are protected." A statement released by Bill and Holly Foglietta, reported in the Daily Item [5] on February 24th, stated in part: "This decision to continue to punish the Foglietta boys was the culmination of a thoughtfully orchestrated cover-up of the very serious allegation of verbal and physical abuse by the boys' coach, and to be sure, the outcome had a predetermined conclusion from its start."
The Fogliettas' appeal is currently pending before MassHockey. "We are confident that their review will vindicate the Fogliettas, and find O'Keefe and Lynn Youth Hockey violated the established process and rules to deal with the allegations raised in this incident, but shall accept any conclusion nonetheless," the couple told the newspaper.
As for the twins, it was too late in the season for them to join another team. They will be attending to some skill sessions this month, and skating once a week with their father, who plays with the Massport Firemen, to keep sharp until tryouts start up again.
Was what the Fogliettas say happened at the rink that Saturday morning in January "borderline child abuse"? It clearly involved a child, so the only real question is whether it constituted abuse.
Experts in the field agree that a child is abused when someone uses his or her power or position to harm them emotionally, physically or sexually. Emotional abuse is a verbal attack on a child's self-esteem by a person in a position of power, authority, or trust, such as a parent or a coach. It occurs even if the attack is not intended by the adult to cause harm, and can take many forms, including insults, criticism or ridicule, or yelling at a child for losing or not playing up to expectations.
If Coach Norcross did at the rink that day what the Foglietta twins say he did, his conduct clearly constituted emotional abuse: as a coach, he was a person in a position of power, authority of trust. By criticizing Austin in front of his teammates by characterizing his asking for the puck as "ridiculous" and the most selfish thing" he had ever seen, and by directly assaulting the fragile self-esteem of a nine-year-old boy, telling him he wasn't even the best player on the team and naming several players who he said had probably scored more goals, Norcross could be viewed as being guilty of emotional abuse.
The LYH board, the coach, and his supporters say none of this happened, of course, but that conclusion is undercut by several telling bits of evidence.
To begin with it is difficult to understand how both the LYH Board and the discipline panel could conclude that the allegations "could not be substantiated" and that there was "no corroborating evidence from other coaches, parents or players." First, to reach such a conclusion it had to decide that the boys and their father were making the story up out of whole cloth. Second, at least one brave mom came forward to corroborate at least part of the Fogliettas' story, and, if Holly is to believed, other parents would have done so but for fear of retaliation.
Third, another parent, while he said he didn't hear or see the coach say anything to Austin, confirmed another part of the Fogliettas' story - that the coach had been yelling at the referees about calls during the game.
And, fourth, and perhaps most significantly, one of Norcross' assistant coaches admitted - almost boasted - that the coaches yelled at the players in the locker room for not playing better, because that's what hockey coaches do.
The disciplinary panel's decision says the LYH board obtained phone and in-person interviews from the coaches and other parents present at the rink that day, none of whom are identified in the record, but not a single coach or parent appeared or testified at the disciplinary hearing, which leaves one with the definite and firm impression that the panel essentially cherry-picked the evidence - much of it obtained, not by the panel, but by the Board outside of the hearing process - to support the Board's initial decision to back the coach and view Holly's complaint, not as one of a parent concerned about the way a coach had treated her nine-year-old son, a coach who, for reasons which may never be known, was let go from two prior coaching jobs, and some, who had known him since his days at St. Mary's High School, say had been a bully ever since, but as a personal attack on one of its coaches.
The only way, therefore, to make sense of the Board's initial finding that borderline child abuse did not occur, or the disciplinary panel's rubber stamping of that decision, is by concluding that they were operating under a completely different definition of what constituted child abuse, one in which yelling at players, telling them they are selfish, criticizing them in front of their teammates, to the point that they cry, think the coaches are "mean" and are scared and afraid, isn't considered abuse at all.
That this was likely the Lynn board's mindset and that of the disciplinary committee finds support in the comments made by Norcross' assistant coach ("We are hockey coaches. Do we yell? Yeah, we do, but it's no different than any other sport. We told them they could have played better"), as well from what one of the player's father told the newspaper: that he had "no problem with any of [the coaches'] tactics" including yelling at referees about calls during the game and yelling at kids "when they need to be yelled at."
But, since when is this acceptable behavior for a coach and not abuse? Is it acceptable simply because it's what hockey coaches do, that it is essentially part of the very culture of the Lynn Youth Hockey program, if not youth hockey or youth sports in general?
That Lynn Hockey does not appear to have viewed what the coach is alleged to have done as child abuse at all isn't really all that surprising, considering that the message has clearly not come from the top, from USA Hockey, that emotional and psychological abuse by coaches of players will not be tolerated.
The Coach's Ethics Code and Coach's Code of Conduct in USA Hockey's Annual Guide contain a lot of well-meaning language about coaches respecting "the fundamental rights, welfare, dignity, values, opinions and worth of all participants," condemning hazing and bullying, reminding coaches to be positive role models for their players, not to publicly criticize them, and not to yell or verbally or physically abuse players, and contain specific policies on sexual and physical abuse, completely absent from the 133-page handbook is any policy regarding emotional or psychological abuse.
Dave Fischer, USA Hockey's Senior Director, Communications conceded in an e-mail to MomsTeam that there "currently is nothing specifically using the wording psychological abuse" in the either the USA Coaching Ethics Code or the Coach's Code of Conduct, although they included, he said, "several points that could be applicable to allegations of psychological abuse."
My repeated e-mails and phone calls to Dave Ogrean, the Executive Director of USA Hockey, in which I asked pointedly why the organization has no policy on emotional/psychological abuse nor recognized it as a problem have not been returned.
Why USA Hockey lacks such a policy is all the more surprising given both substantial anecdotal evidence and studies suggesting that the berating or threatening of players, inciting violent play, and demoralizing and demeaning young players is endemic, not just in hockey, but in other sports as well
A July 8, 2010 article [6] in the Toronto Star, for instance, cites data on abuse collected by JustPlay [7], a national sports research firm in Canada, from reports by officials after games, suggesting that direct abuse (including coaches berating or threatening players, inciting violent play, and demoralizing young players) and indirect abuse (coaches harassing officials, opposing players and spectators) occurs in about 40 percent of all youth hockey, baseball and football games in Canada, which triggers a "‘toxic tornado' with long-lasting effects" on the emotional development of players.
The article cites the story of a 14-year-old hockey player who he and his father say quit because of verbal abuse from a coach.
"My coach would scream and freak out over things in practices, breaking sticks and singling me out in the dressing room saying, ‘You [don't] care about this game, you have no commitment to the team and shouldn't be playing," said Josh Shaddock about the environment in which he played as a 13-year-old in the Greater Toronto Hockey League. "It made me not want to go to my games and practices because I was going to get yelled at. It demoralizes you."
A complaint to the league led to a hearing in which officials ruled that the coach committed four instances of misconduct resulting in a four-game suspension and one year's probation.
And as studies done more than ten years apart suggest, emotional/psychological abuse in youth sports isn't new and continues to be a widespread and persistent problem.
According to a widely reported 1993 survey conducted by the Minnesota Amateur Sports Commission:
Twelve years later, a 2005 study by researchers at the University of Missouri, the University of Minnesota, and Notre Dame University reported in the Journal of Research in Character Education found that emotional abuse in youth sports was still widespread:
But even if one assumes that all Coach Norcross did was to yell at the referee during the game (as one father of player said he did), and yell at the team in the locker room after winning the game for not playing better (as one of his assistant coaches concedes they did), and that it was his practice, as the same father said, to "yell at players when they need to be yelled at", his conduct should still be viewed as unacceptable.
The very idea that nine-year-old youth hockey players, or young athletes in any sport - individual or team - somehow deserve to, much less need to be yelled at cannot be squared with what youth sports should be all about: developing skills and self-esteem, learning positive life lessons, and, above all, having fun.
Perhaps because the damage caused by emotional abuse is not obvious, like sexual abuse, or immediately apparent, like a physical injury, its effect is often overlooked and minimized.
But, says San Francisco child psychologist Maria Pease, the damage is no less real, and, in fact, may be much more damaging and long-lasting:
Clearly, much, much more needs to be done by sport national governing bodies to address the issue of emotional abuse.
In its written decision upholding the expulsion of the Foglietta family from the program, the LYH discipline committee said it was based on what it characterized as an "incredible breach" of its zero tolerance policy.
Yet nothing in either the Parent Code of Conduct to which Holly Foglietta agreed when she signed up her twins for hockey in March 2011 or USA Hockey's Zero Tolerance Policy provides any justification whatsoever for basing a decision to expel the family from the program.
The Parent Code of Conduct states, in pertinent part, as follows:
Hockey Parents Make The Difference
Keep in mind that, above all, the motivating factor for most children who enter an organized youth sports program is their desire to have fun. This is particularly true of young children, many of whom are newcomers to the youth sports scene. With a supportive attitude and a fundamental understanding of the "basics" of hockey, everyone will come away from their youth sports experience with a positive feeling.
In The Stands
Parents can take the fun out of hockey by continually yelling or screaming from the stands. Parents should enjoy the game and applaud good plays. The stands are not a place from which parents should try to personally coach their kids. Kids often mirror the actions of their parents; if they see mom or dad losing their cool in the stands, they'll probably do the same on the ice. There will be a no tolerance policy in which no verbal, physical etc. abuse will be tolerated by any parent towards a player, coach, official, parents, etc. at any time. A course of action followed by USA Hockey could reflect [sic] in a suspension, expulsion, or probation based on what a disciplinary committee decides after hearing reviewing and hearing all documentation of the case.
Car and Home
Some parents not only spoil the fun for their kids at the ice rink, but also in the car, believing it is the perfect place for instruction. Parents should try to keep things in perspective. There's more to life than hockey, and the car and home are not places to coach. Parents need to remember that they are not the coach, and the most difficult kind of parent is the one who coaches against the real coach. It's unfair to put children in the position of having to decide who to listen to - their parents or the coach.
At Practice
Parents have to remember that if a child wants to improve, they have to practice - not just play. Even if a child is not the "star" player for a team, practice stresses the importance of teamwork, establishing goals, discipline and learning to control your emotions, all of which are important lessons children can use both in and away from sports.
Zero Tolerance Policy
Lynn Youth Hockey has a zero tolerance policy that mandates no physical abuse, abusive language, threats, berating of any player, coach, official, etc. Lynn Youth Hockey takes this Parent Code of Conduct very serious [sic] and enforces this to the fullest with suspension or termination for life within Lynn Youth Hockey. By signing and dating below you understand that the Parent Code Conduct [sic] will be enforced at practices, games, or any Lynn Youth Hockey event. (emphasis added).
Even a cursory examination of that policy demonstrates it that was designed to prohibit parents from directing abusive language towards a player, coach, official, or another parent at practices and games, and was not intended to be used to punish a parent for lodging a written complaint with the LYH board about alleged abuse of their child by a coach, even if such charge, initially made in a confidential e-mail, was ultimately found to lack merit.
Ironically, while reminding parents to "keep things in perspective", that they set a bad example for their kids if they "lose their cool" in the stands, can take the fun out of hockey "by continually yelling or screaming from the stands", that there is more to life than hockey, that one of the life lessons youth hockey is intended to teach kids is to "control their emotions", and that "berating of any ... official" is a violation of the Zero Tolerance policy, LYH and its supporters among parents of players do not appear to hold coaches to that same standard. Instead, the evidence suggests that coaches are give license to be "intense", to yell at officials from the bench, yell at their players in the locker room even after a win (!), and lose control of their emotions with relative impunity, secure in the knowledge that they won't be called to account, either because parents are either comfortable condoning such behavior (hey, it's hockey, after all), or too afraid to complain to a board because they fear - with good reason - that when push comes to shove, it will come down on the side of the coaches, not do what's best for the kids. In short, if LYH has a zero tolerance policy, it appears to a zero tolerance of complaints of emotional abuse by its coaches.
In addition to imposing penalties on players and coaches for unsportsmanlike conduct towards game officials, USA Hockey's Zero Tolerance policy is likewise directed at parents as spectators at games, by requiring "all players, coaches, officials, team officials, and administrators and parents/spectators to maintain a sportsmanlike and educational atmosphere before, during and after all USA Hockey-sanctioned games." (emphasis supplied). That it is intended to prevent misbehavior by parents at games is clear from the procedure outlined for dealing with such conduct:
The game will be stopped by game officials when parents/spectators displaying inappropriate and disruptive behavior interfere with other spectators or the game. The game officials will identify violators to the coaches for the purpose of removing parents/spectators from the spectator's viewing and game area. Once removed, play will resume. Lost time will not be replaced and violators may be subject to further disciplinary action by the local governing body. This inappropriate and disruptive behavior shall include:
That there is absolutely no evidence that Fogliettas were ever informed that the January 26 decision by the LYH board to terminate the program's relationship with the Fogliettas was based on an alleged violation of that policy, nor, prior to receipt of the written decision itself, were they ever told that such alleged violation was the issue the panel would be deciding. Considered in its entirety, the record thus leads to but one conclusion: that Lynn Youth Hockey knew it had to come up with some justification to cite as a reason for its decision to protect its coach and sever ties with the Foglietta family, and the best it could come up with was a trumped violation of a policy that had nothing whatsoever to do with lodging what it claimed was a false complaint of misconduct by one of its coaches.
Not only does the evidence undercut the conclusion by, and rationale for, the decisions by the LYH board and the discipline committee to sever ties with the Foglietta family, but it demonstrates that the process - if it can even be dignified by calling it that - they followed was so fatally flawed as to be emptied of any substantial legitimacy, suggesting an adult-centered organization to whom the rules governing the conduct of local youth hockey clubs and certification of their coaches appear to have meant very little.
If the LYH board believed, after speaking with Norcross and conducting its initial investigation, that Holly Foglietta's allegations against him were so scurrilous and unsubstantiated that they warranted the program equivalent of a death penalty - termination for life from Lynn Youth Hockey - for violation of the Zero Tolerance Policy, such disciplinary action should have been taken only after a hearing by the appropriate disciplinary authority following MassHockey and USA Hockey rules and procedures, not, as in this case, before such a hearing; only after giving specific notice of the grounds for proposed discipline, which was not provided; before a committee comprised of "reasonably independent and objective" persons, not a panel counting among a Board member involved in the original decision and a coach who shared ice time with Norcross and was friendly with him and his assistant coaches.
If the story of the Fogliettas' battle against Lynn Youth Hockey is a cautionary tale, what it does it tell us, not just about the local hockey program in a Boston suburb, but the sport as it is played on rinks all across the country? How can all the stakeholders in youth sports - parents, coaches, administrators, national governing bodies, learn from the mistakes made here (and the list is so long it will have to be left to another article)? What are the changes that need to be made, not just at the local level, but from top to bottom, to give emotional abuse the same attention it deserves as sexual abuse appears to being given, at least in the immediate aftermath of the Penn State and Syracuse scandals?
Clearly, the Foglietta saga is, in so many ways, a sad commentary on the state of youth hockey, not just in one town and one program, but into a culture that, too often, pays lip service to being for the kids but which is often more about adults, their egos, and intramural politics and power; a sport in which the message to parents and players is not to rock the boat, not to criticize coaches, not to complain about what they view as emotional abuse, because, if they do, they risk being ostracized, seeing their kids' playing time dwindle to next to nothing, or worse, drummed out of the program altogether; where disciplinary rules, coaching certification requirements, and codes of ethic and conduct are a virtual dead letter, except, of course, when they can be used as a weapon to cow an out-of-line parent into silence and send a message to other parents not to even think about challenging the authority of the powers that be; where youth hockey clubs are run by and for the benefit of the coaches and their cronies, perhaps so they can "bask in the reflected glory" of their players, and not for the kids and their emotional well-being; where yelling at kids, criticizing them in front of their teammates, dressing them down for what they consider a poor performance - even when the team wins - is routine, viewed as the norm (they are hockey coaches, after all), where such conduct is considered acceptable by most parents and, if it isn't, well, too bad, that's just the way it is.
The really sad thing is that, instead of being about whether a coach emotionally abused a player, about whether he violated USA Hockey's Code of Ethics and/or Code of Conduct, or about the way Lynn Youth Hockey handled Holly Foglietta's complaint, or about how to provide parents and their children a way in which raise questions about a coach's conduct in a way that does not expose them to retaliation, and how to make sure that coaches abide by codes of conduct supposedly intended to protect the kids they coach, the tables were turned on the Foglietta family, with the coach, the rest of the coaching fraternity, the LYH board, and their supporters circling the wagons, getting everyone - or almost everyone - to toe the party line, and engaging in a well-orchestrated and coordinated campaign to make Holly the victim, ignore or minimize the very real and serious problem of emotional abuse, drum the family out of the program, and, when it found out that it couldn't simply impose that punishment by fiat but to hold a hearing, conduct a kangaroo court/show trial to cover its tracks, a process in which the Board and its allies acted as judge, jury and executioner, and, without a basis in its rules for the punishment it was hell bent on meting out, came up with a trumped up violation of a Zero Tolerance Policy, designed to prevent parents from acting out at games, as justification for banning the family from the program.
But simply dragging everyone through the mud accomplishes little. What is really needed is change. While I will have more to say about particular aspects of the Foglietta story in future articles, for now, at least two major changes cry out for immediate implementation:
First, procedures needs to be put in place in every youth sports program to
Second, child-centered policies need to be implemented by national governing bodies to safeguard children, not just sexual and physical abuse, but from emotional abuse as well. Unless and until USA Hockey and the national governing bodies of other sports give the problem of emotional abuse the same prominence, the same attention, the same approbation, as sexual and physical abuse, a culture of abuse will continue to thrive.
Some countries are now beginning to employ protection policies in the context of sports to safeguard children from abuse.
As Michael Hartill of Edge Hill University in England, points out, in the UK, for example, state funding for sports governing bodies is now linked to a set of 11 national standards for safeguarding children, with a Child Protection in Sport Unit (CPSU) responsible for supporting and monitoring the implementation of these standards as they are ‘rolled out' across sports in the UK.
Principally this has resulted in the production and implementation of child protection policies within sports governing bodies largely dealing with adult responsibility for best practices when working with children and dealing with child protection issues. The CPSU's ultimate aim is to safeguard children through encouraging cultural change.
Like Hartill, I believe such policies to protect/safeguard children in sport are essential, although like him, I fear that, given the forces of patriarchy and commercialism, not to mention adult egos, stacked up against those who believe in a different version of physical activity than the current model of youth sports in this country, our ability to deliver change that will truly transform childhood physical activity seems somewhat limited.
While we seem ready to accept child protection policies to weed out the truly deviant few (as long as they are not too inconvenient), if we are really serious about tackling childhood abuse, policy development is, as Hartill notes, "only the first step in a long process of radical change - a process that many forces dominant within sport might perceive that they have a vested interest in resisting."
Having worked tirelessly for the better part of two decades to put the word "youth" back in youth sports, to make youth sports child-centered, to put their interests first, to make youth sports about play, games, and fun, to expose the dirty little secret of the emotional abuse of our children, pulling off the scab, is just the first step in what has and will no doubt continue to be a struggle to fundamentally transform the culture of youth sports.
Has your child been emotionally abused? MomsTeam wants to hear your story. Send it an e-mail to delench@MomsTeam.com.
Links:
[1] http://www.itemlive.com/articles/2012/02/10/news/news01.txt
[2] http://itemlive.com/articles/2012/02/14/news/news02.txt
[3] http://www.itemlive.com/articles/2012/02/15/news/news02.txt
[4] http://www.itemlive.com/articles/2012/02/23/breaking_news/breakingnews09.txt
[5] http://www.itemlive.com/articles/2012/02/24/news/news02.txt
[6] http://www.thestar.com/article/833529
[7] http://www.wejustplay.com/
[8] https://mail.momsteam.com/health-safety/emotional-injuries/general/abuse-in-youth-sports-takes-many-different-forms
[9] https://mail.momsteam.com/health-safety/emotional-injuries/general/greater-protection-of-children-from-abuse-in-sports-is-need