Emotional Injuries

Building school spirit through rituals is a time-honored tradition at most American schools, from middle school through college. A hazing ritual is often defended as a way for people to earn their place in an organization and to build school and organizational spirit. The distorted logic of hazing apologists is that the worse a person joining the organization is treated, the better leader and performer he or she will be. Team building rituals should be focused on team development and not on individual embarrassment and injury. It is this area which is most likely to be abused or misunderstood. Whether the initiation ritual revolves around doing silly things like dressing up in weird clothes during school or singing amusing songs at a school assembly, the activity should not be one that creates such anger and humiliation that the young student vow to get revenge. When this type of initiation is done well it creates fun and helps all people on the team know that the new player is willing to trust the older ones to do activities which enhance the performance of the team.

Perhaps no other topic sparks as much heated debate among parents as the practice of cutting potential players from middle or high school teams. While there are two sides to the argument, I believe the practice is outmoded and needs to be reexamined in light of twenty-first century realities.

Of the tens of thousands of e-mails MomsTeam has received over the years, most distressing are those that detail how often some try to justify emotional or even physical abuse of youth sports athletes in the name of winning. Simply put, there is no excuse for such abuse.