Brooke de Lench's blog

There is a battle brewing at Laguna Beach High School in California. It involves protecting the safety of kids during sports, so you know which side I fall on. This is no different than hundreds of stories from across the country that that I get sent each month, but this caught my attention because it talked about a Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) infection which is a potentially fatal bacterium that too few sports parents know much about. 

Before I began writing my youth sports parenting book, Home Team Advantage, a close friend - who was herself  the author of four bestselling books - gave me a short book called Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by by Anne Lamott.

On July 12, UNICEF's Innocenti Research Center in Florence, Italy released an important report on violence against children in sport in industrialized countries, including the United States.

The report found a troubling lack of awareness of and education on child protection issues among youth sports coaches, parents, and other stakeholders. To combat the problem it recommends improvements in data collection and knowledge generation about violence to children in sport, development of structures and systems for eliminating and preventing such violence (including promotion of ethical guidelines and codes of conduct), and education, awareness-raising and training.

A bill pending in the Congress would ban corporal punishment in school sports, ending the spanking, paddling and physical punishment many states permit at the hands of teachers and coaches.

I recently had a chance to interview the mother of NBA star, Shaquille O'Neal, Lucille, whose inspirational book, Walk Like You Have Somewhere to Go (Thomas Nelson 2010), has just been published.

Before I get to the interview, I want to say I loved Lucille's book! It is one of those books you just cannot put down. I'll be the first to admit I do not follow professional basketball enough to know much about her son, Shaquille "Shaq" O'Neal, other than knowing that he is a future Hall of Famer.