PLOWLINE, COACHES, MULES AND A 100 YARDS OF COTTON

As we organized our 1961-1962 University of Kentucky Wildcat Football Reunion, held June 2008, we began gathering information. Questionnaires were mailed to our teammates and information gathering began. Concerns about teammates reported experiences 50 Years Ago began to accumulate as teammates returned information for the Reunion.

We realized our teammates suffered morbidity and mortality from the reports submitted. That prompted us to survey our 1961-1962 University of Kentucky Football Team. Frank Deford, Sports Illustrated reporter, said from his recollection, it was the “first study of its kind”.

The result was “A Longitudinal and Retrospective Study of The Impact of Coaching Behaviors on the 1961-1962 University of Kentucky Football Wildcats”, Kay Collier McLaughlin, Ph.D., Micheal B. Minix Sr. M.D., Twila Minix, R.N., Jim Overman, Scott Brogdon.

Thus began our research group’s mission to discover the circumstances and pathology that compelled Charlie Bradshaw and his assistants to the vile, tyrannical, brutal abusive abnormal Coaching Behaviors.

Both Plow Line and Plowline are acceptable spellings for the term. For the purposes of this research, Plowline was used because it represents a one piece continuous sinister controlling abusive strap. At the shake of the Plowline the action or inaction begins. Everything starts with a “Git Up” and “Gee Haw” command and a vicious strapping to the mule. For the mule that means left and right for our UK football players it meant harassment, bulling, belittling, physical and emotional abuse. You had to have been there.

During the last few years, Athlete Human Rights Violations and Child and Youth Physical and Psychological Athlete Endangerment and Maltreatment and Sexual abuse by Coaches have dramatically increased.

Some members of the Sports Community think Sports Violence is a dilemma in Collision and Contact Sports and Injuries and Deaths in all Sports are just “part of the game”. The dilemma is that authorities must penalize and punish the Perpetrating, Mistreating, Abusive Coach for the victimized Child and Youth Athletes, who were injured even though it resulted from failure of Proper Coaching Protection and Supervision of the Athletes.

50% Child and Youth Athlete Injuries and Deaths aren’t inherent or natural to the games Athletes play, according to the CDC and NIH. These Prevetnable, Not-Accidental Injuries and Deaths should not happen. The Human Rights, Safety, Health, Care and Welfare of our Amateur Child and Youth Athletes are first and foremost. Sports Participation should be an Athlete Centered System.

All Amateur Athlete Injuries and Deaths are not just “part of the game”. Please dispel that erroneous notion from the beginning.

• 2,250,000 Child and Youth Amateur Athletes, each year are at Risk for Injuries and Deaths that result from failure of Proper Coaching Protection and Supervision.
• 4,000 of the 8,000 daily Emergency Department Child and Youth Athletes Injuries and Deaths result from failure of Proper Coaching Protection and Supervision, if the CDC and NIH are correct.
• These 2,250,000 yearly Injuries/Deaths and 4,000 daily ER Injuries of Child and Youth U.S. Amateur Athlete Victims need to be Prevented.
• Athlete Safety1st MISSION and GOAL is the Prevention of 2,250,000 Not-Accidental yearly Injuries and Deaths and 4,000 daily ER Injuries of Child Amateur and Youth Athlete Victims in the U.S.

Is winning more important than the safety and mental health of our Child and Youth athletes? [50. “Coaching ABUSE: The dirty, not-so-little secret in sports”, Competitive Advantage, Sports Psychology services and Resources Volume 8, #6, 7, & 8 June-August 2007Dr. Alan Goldberg]

As far back as 1981 Doctors were wondering about Child Athlete Abuse Syndrome. “Forcing kids into sports is called “type of Child Abuse.” Some parents abuse their children by beating them, others by pushing them to succeed in sports to the point of serious injury.”

Dr. Edwin R. Guise of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit 1981 calls it “Socially Approved Athletic Child Abuse.” Dr. Guise has reported that “swimmers shoulder” is a condition so severe it requires surgery and is on the increase among teenagers who are team swimmers.

Another Bone Specialist Dr. Richard M. Ball of Plainfield, N.J. 1981 condemned the grueling training programs for adolescents as a “Battered-Child-Athlete-Syndrome”. Dr. Ball said teenage swimmers were developing serious should tendonitis that might require surgery.

Dr. Edwin R. Guise and Dr. Richard M. Ball are credited for the terms
• “Socially Approved Athletic Child Abuse”
• “Battered-Child-Athlete-Syndrome”
[Weekly World News, Jan 20, 1981, Health News]

RESEARCH REPORT

I. INTRODUCTION
II. “GOD SO LOVED US. HE GAVE US FOOTBALL”
III. TOUGHEST COACH EVER
IV. BEAR BRYANT
V. THE GREAT MENTOR, CREDIBLE, TEACHER, TRUSTWORTHY COACH
VI. COACHING ABUSE
VII. COERCIVE COACHS’ DISCIPLES’ AND ILLNESS
VIII. THE BRADSHAW EXPERIENCE *
IX. PUNISHMENTS AND THE GOLDEN RULE *
IX. ATHLETES’ PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL (EMOTIONAL) ABUSE AWARENESS AND MANDATORY REPORTING
X. COACH BLANON COLLIER RECORDS *
XI. CHARLIE BRADSHAW RECORDS *
XII. REFERENCES
XIII, PRAISE FOR HAWPE THE SPORTS JOURNALIST *

PLOWLINE, COACHES, MULES, AND A HUNDRED YARDS OF COTTON

I. INTRODUCTION

The phenomenon of child abuse and neglect has been known throughout the centuries. Abuse appears in different groups of children and adults who are supervised by caretakers who have different relationships, occupations and professions who are associated with the abused. They are called perpetrators.

During the last few years, the problem of athlete abuse by coaches is on the increase. Some think of athlete abuse as a dilemma because one must choose to penalize or punish the perpetrating coach while protecting abused athletes. Others will argue that injuries and mistreatments of athletes are just part of the game. Let us dispel that preposterous notion in the beginning, because the health and welfare of our youth are first and foremost.

Since the Olympics in Athens in 2004, the protection of athletes’ rights from improper behaviors, during the training process has become a vital concern. Avoidance of coaching behaviors, which violate individual athlete’s rights, has drawn the attention of some authorities.

Abuse and harassment persists at all levels of life and all levels of sport. It is a serious issue that impacts all participants i.e. the athletes, parents, coaches, officials and entire athletic communities. Sport, some believe, reflects society’s tolerance of violence. “As it relates to sport, violence can be defined as a physical manifestation that bears no direct relationship to the rules, goals and achievements of sport” 107.

The goals of sports are to create a sporting environments with fair play, respect for others and atmosphere that will not tolerate unacceptable violent behaviors. Sports builds good character…only when good characters coach the sports. 8.

There are many grey areas of violence in some sports. The rugged, rough, physical collision and contact sports are different in some respects than the non contact sports. 107.

“All types of abuse can occur in sport as they do in many other institutional contexts such as the workplace, government, religious organizations and the home.
Specifically, abuse in sport, whether sexual or not, deters girls and women from participating and developing as athletes. The development and implementation of policies regarding such abuse will help create organizational climates in which women and girls, as well as men and boys, can participate and feel free to report such incidents.

Setting policy on verbal, physical and psychological abuse is also likely to decrease the likelihood of such offenses. The Women’s Sports Foundation acknowledges that abuse occurs in athletics and seeks to prevent its occurrence through the development of this policy and position statement.” 119.

Currently, violence and abuse in sports have been neglected by medical and health care communities and facilities, and many other dysfunctional systems in crisis.
Different well meaning organizations have worked to improve education and enlightenment of all parties concerned, particularly the Coaches. They have mustered very little permanent affect on sports violence and abuse. They lack leverage and authority. Who will rescue and prevent child and adult physical and psychological (emotional) injuries and deaths and athlete sexual abuse?

The most important advocates in Kentucky for healthy, protective, safe sports environments for young athletes are the Kentucky Medical Society, KMA, Child Abuse Recognition Education, C.A.R.E., Cabinet for Health and Family Services, CHFS, the Division of Adult and Child Health Improvement, Department for Public Health, Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Physicians, Nurses and the entire Health Care community including hospital and other medical and surgical facilities and criminal and civil justice systems. But mosts of these systems are in crisis when it comes to Child Abuse according to the U.S. Surgeon General 2005

“Dr. Steven Kairys, a professor of pediatrics at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J., and then director of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said a major concern of pediatricians with reporting abuse is the judges.

One of the most powerful mechanisms for protecting children from abuse is a law that designates school teachers, day care operators, doctors, nurses, and others “mandatory reporters” of child abuse and neglect.”

Kairys said abuse cases are inadequately reported by pediatricians and investigated, because of untrained social workers, fear of the doctor for disruption of the parent-doctor relationships, paper work, poor communication, and mistrust between CPS and the medical community and unqualified judges.

Doctor Kairys said, some doctors felt that CPS were incompetent and their reports were a waste of time because CPS often failed to follow up sufficiently on the cases that doctors and hospitals report.

The doctors who are most likely to observe physical abuse only account for two to three percent of abuse reports filed. The majority comes from school teachers and other mandatory reporters. 106.

Each year, hospital emergency rooms treat more than 775,000 boys and girls ages 5 to 14 for sports injuries. There are 8,000 sports related injuries children less than 18 treated daily in U.S. emergency departments.

Every parent who has been on a playground, baseball diamond or youth-soccer field can tell about coaches who insult, harass, and belittle their young children. Behavior that no parent or administrator would tolerate in a classroom often seems acceptable on America’s playing fields, and rarely anyone protests.

Many are saying they’ve had enough. They want to purge youth sports of the physical and emotional abuses that result from the emphasis on winning-at-all-costs and have long been called “part of the game.” Educators and children’s health advocates are seeking more supervision and training for the millions of coaches and volunteers nationwide who oversee the approximately 25 million boys and girls who participate in youth sports leagues each year Coaches at public schools are often untrained.

“I don’t think that parents and coaches mean to be mean,” said Beth Campbell, the National Youth Sports Coaches Association’s coach of the year. “They just don’t know any better.”

Experts believe that no more than 20 percent of youth-league coaches have received even minimal training in the technical aspects and safety features of the game or in child development. States do not require it, nor do the majority of youth sports leagues.

Physicians and Health Care Personnel must be reminded and educated that they risk criminal charges and malpractice claims themselves if they fail to Report Child Athlete and Adult Athlete Abuse. “Mandatory reporting and screening laws are proliferating. 64.

C.A.R.E., Child Abuse Recognition Education a division of Prevent Child Abuse Kentucky reported that “The Child Safety Branch of DCBS (Department of Community Based Services which has a branch in each Kentucky county) has responded to the question regarding coaches as caregivers.

“Our agency [DCBS] investigates abuse and neglect allegations involving situations where a person is providing care, has custody or has control of a child. Teachers, camp counselors, bus drivers, babysitters, grandparents, coaches etc fit in to that category if they are left to care for a child and the parent is not present (for supervision and caregiving). To my knowledge we are investigating these type situations in this manner across the state. If [DCBS] staff have questions about whether a person falls into these categories, they can consult with Central Office or their regional attorney.”

Sports participation waivers are signed by all parents of young athletes or young adult athletes before participation in an organized sports activity. Improper protection and supervision in sports are associated with an increased risk of injury.
Increased protection and supervision are associated with the prevention of athletes’ injuries.

Coaches appear, in some instances, to hide behind this waiver. Some categorize all harmful incidents, whether in safe or harmful sports environments, as accidents. “If there is an accident it is just part of the game.” Some coaches believe they are immune from suit, dismissal or reprimand because of the waiver.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that waivers cannot void liability for gross negligence. Gross negligence is reckless, wanton or willful misconduct, not mere neglect. 100.

However, sports participation waivers do not prevent athlete abuse reporting. Coaches are not immune from athlete abuse reporting because a waiver has been signed. Doctors, health care personnel and everyone should report coaches who mistreat and abuse athletes. The DCBS policy in Kentucky after the above policy statement about investigating coaches as caregivers.

Gross Negligence is sometimes difficult to prove. But Child Athlete Abuse and Reporting Negligence are not as difficult. Rescue of Abused Athletes and Prevention of Athlete Abuse should not be hindered due to lack of Failure to Report by doctors, health care personnel and health care facilities and their social services. The recent spike in sports related injuries that are the result of a coach’s inadequate supervision and caregiving is a Public Health Problem that has, heretofore, fallen through the cracks of Public Health due to neglected awareness, prevention, mandatory reporting, incomplete investigations and justice.

In Kentucky, Coaches have no individual immunity. When Yanero (Civil Case) was decided in 2001 it looked as if at least some of the cloak of immunity had been pulled back.

A high school baseball coach was named as an individual defendant following a mishap at batting practice. Justice Cooper, in his customary scholarly fashion, assembled a cogent history of sovereign immunity and got rid of Malone’s blanket immunity for individuals.

Official Immunity : “The issues with respect to the negligence of the coaches vis-a-vis that of Yanero and/or Coker is best left to a jury properly instructed in accordance with KRS 411.182.

There will be allocation of fault for Coaches in tort actions. KRS 411.182 Allocation of fault in tort actions — Award of damages — Effect of release.

• In all tort actions, including products liability actions, involving fault of more than one
(1) party to the action, including third-party defendants and persons who have been released under subsection (4) of this section,
• the court, unless otherwise agreed by all parties, shall instruct the jury to answer interrogatories or, if there is no jury, shall make findings indicating:
• The amount of damages each claimant would be entitled to recover if contributory fault is disregarded; and
• (b) The percentage of the total fault of all the parties to each claim that is allocated to each claimant, defendant, third-party defendant, and person who has been released from liability under subsection (4) of this section.

“What is wrong with a society that places so much importance on winning in sports, that it blatantly neglects the needs and well being of the child (and adult) athletes, that it’s charged with educating and protecting?

Are we that out of touch that we’ve lost our perspective on what really matters in life? Are too many parents making a “deal with the devil” and turning their kids over to coaches with questionable methods just because these coaches supposedly produce “champions?” Is winning more important than the safety and mental health of the athletes? 50.

“GOD SO LOVED US. HE GAVE US FOOTBALL”

My niece, Shelby Drew Conley, gave me a plaque, a Christmas gift, that I proudly display on my home’s den wall. It says “for God so loved us, He gave us football”.
That plaque addressed the popularity of American football among athletes, coaches, institutions, communities, fans and how much football means to me. God only knows how much I love the game of Football.

Football is extremely popular. Of course, God intended for all His children to receive proper protection and supervision and safeguard form anyone potentially harmful, including coaches.

When very young, I began playing sand lot ant then organized football in grade school. My life was characterized by self discipline and determination mixed with athletic ability for any sport and an extreme passion for playing the games of football, baseball and less so basketball.

My dedication, attention to detail and self conditioning were described in The Thin Thirty by Shannon Ragland in 2007. I enjoyed great success in football and baseball and became recognized for my ability and performances. 80.

Thus, I arrived at some of the following conclusions based on my experiences and, plus, developed concerns about coaching abuse after experiencing Athlete Abuse first hand while living through coaching abuse in college.

Athletes must be in excellent physical condition to participate in football games. Coaches endeavor to condition and coach-them-up in preparation for the games. However, sometimes, the coaches, themselves, lack proper conditioning and training experience.

For instance in Kentucky, many amateur, volunteer coaches don’t have the educational background and experience to coach American football and other sports.
Some have never played the game they coach. What these coaches expect from their players, they did not expect of themselves. Even coaches in middle school, high school and our higher learning institutions, at times, have inadequate preparation for coaching the game they are hired or volunteered to coach.

Some coaches, not all, have actually glorified Bear Bryant in the “Junction Boys”, documented in a book by Jim Dent and an ESPN documentary.

It appears that the “Junction Boys” book and documentary have served some coaches as a training manual. Lining up and “busting the guy across form you in the mouth” and hand to hand combat in practice won’t win football games.

While American football is a tough, rough, hardnosed, physical game, even when played fair and square with good sportsmanship, a team must be able to execute their offense and defense. It takes a lot of smarts to play organized football at the highest level. “The Junction Boys” did not teach that concept, both in their surreal life, book and documentary. This is where the Plowline comes-in.

My father attended the University of Alabama. He enrolled in 1936. Bear Bryant attended Alabama and played football from 1932 to 1936. Bear Bryant was known as the “other end”, because Don Hudson was the star end on the Alabama Rose Bowl football team in 1936.

After I became a football recruit, following my success, my father declared that I would not participate in recruitment by Alabama. My father refused to entertain even the thought Alabama recruitment.

My selections boiled down to 4 universities i.e. 2 with football Coaching icons, Bud Wilkinson, Oklahoma and Bobby Dodd, Georgia Tech and 2 universities with medical schools, UK College of Medicine and Coach Blanton Collier and Duke University Medical School And Coach Bill Murry.

Charlie Bradshaw was scout for Alabama at that crucial time recruiting Kentucky football Athletes. Ironically, Charlie Bradshaw was hired as head Coach of UK after Coach Collier was fired. I signed to play with Coach Collier. Sure enough Bradshaw finished my football career at UK after he gave me an ultimatum to choose between football and medicine. My father knew exactly what he was talking about, as usual.

Many other schools recruited and visited our home, family and me during the recruiting process.

He advised me that the University of Alabama would not be the place for me to pursue football and medical career, while playing Bear’s brand of football.
Why would there be a university in the United States in 1961 that would not be suited for me to do both? He was worried about Alabama’s history of football brutality, win-at-all-costs philosophy and lack of concern for athlete’s academics, when Bryant was the head coach.

My father was a student of many sports activities, a passionate sports fan and firmly believed in a good education for his children. He had knowledge of Alabama while attended school there and knew the coaches didn’t emphasize academics for their football athletes at that time.

He did not want his son to be abused by the likes of Bryant. My father and family valued a good education. My father must have gained knowledge about Bryant’s personal reputation as a player and his individual characteristics while at Alabama and must have had first hand information about the bullying of Bear Bryant. Possibly his reputation while at UK in 1940’s and 50’s preceded him.

I was taught that sportsmanship included playing without cheating and bullying. I was never allowed to “trash talk”. My father instructed me to say “good hit”, when I was slobber-knocked, then smile, jump up and return to the huddle. Opposing defensive players couldn’t understand when I took their best hit and complimented them.

What is it about a sport that results in injury, catastrophic injury, death and post traumatic stress anxiety reactions, during pre-season conditioning, months prior to the season’s beginning, not even during a season game?

Considerable morbidity and mortality in all sports occurs during closed practices in the United States. An example of the extent of the problem was an article reviewed in preparation titled “Malpractice During Practice”. The authors pointed their fingers at the rampant improper negligent supervision of football practices and coaching mistreatments and abuses of athletes. Closed practices are a hazardous warning sign of mistreatment and abuse.

Recognition and regulation of coaching abuse has been relegated to our court systems, as it goes unreported and unregulated by our Child Protection Agencies, schools, health care personal and hospitals nationwide, to name only a few of the systems in crisis when it comes to Child and Youth Dangers in the U.S.

American football is extremely popular. I am gratified by the popularity, because American’s have the ability to play the game of American Football. Americans love to play and watch football. The popularity of college football is increasing by leaps and bounds.

In the 2007 NCAA football season, the attendance according to the gate receipts was 48,751,861 for the 619 member schools. That was an increase of 842,548 college football fans. Per game totals were also broken for all divisions of college football. 24.

American football has surpassed baseball as the most popular spectator sport in the U.S. since 1990. The National Football Leagues championship game, the Super Bowl, is watched by almost half of the US television households and is televised in 150 countries. The 32-team National Football League (NFL) is the most popular professional league in the United States.

Large Division I college stadiums are consistently sold out and the college games are widely televised. College football is also popular, with many major colleges and universities playing NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) Division I football, and consistently selling out huge stadiums. College games are widely televised and widely watched.

The lower NCAA divisions and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) also have record attendances by football fans. High school football is very popular and in the South, games attract tens of thousands of fans. There are amateur, club and youth football teams and many “semi-pro” teams, where the players are paid to play as part time weekend jobs. 25.

Many coaches possess reliable knowledge about athletes because of the coach’s intuition. Mentoring, great coaches understand and have a relationship with their players. Blanton Collier, coach of the Cleveland Browns, knew a great football player when he saw one.

Commenting on an opinion that Jim Brown was a poor blocker, Coach collier said, “Man O’ War was a fabulous racehorse. Undoubtedly he could have pulled a plow, too, but his greater talent was running a race.” 46.

Blanton Collier realized Jimmy Brown’s valuable attributes and developed Brown as a skilled mentor, teacher and trainer would develop a thoroughbred.

“God so loved the world, He gave us” credible athletic coaches, too. Credible coaches are the coaches who know the x’s and o’s of the game. They can teach the techniques and strategies of the sport they coach, whether the sport is American football, basketball, baseball, soccer (European football) and so on. They are also strategists and tacticians. They know how to coach the players on the field, in the arena, on the court and every venue, unlike the so called “field Coach”.
Jimmy Brown said of Blanton Collier when he took the head coaching job with the Cleveland Browns, “I was ready for his football genius…… but I wasn’t ready for his humanity”. 124.

Mentor, credible coaches stand above and different form coercive abusive coaches, because the credible coach earns the respect of their athletes. They follow the Golden Rule, “do unto others”.

The credible coach treats the athletes with respect and take responsibility for their players’ safety, health, care and welfare; protect and supervise their Athletes and their Human Rights. Credible, trustworthy Coaches develop a positive relationship with their players and recognize the player’ effort, when the athlete plays well. The credible coach’s athletes play for the love of the game.

Conversely, a “field coach”, who does not know the x’s and o’s, might be a coercive coach who is abusive to the athletes. His or her athletes play out of fear. They memic other Coaches but aren’t students of the game.

The coercive coach motivates the players like a mule driver would motivate his mules in a field of cotton. They try to beat the athletes into a great performance like you’d beat a “rented mule”. Beaten “rented mule-like football players” perform hitched to the plowline, or the rein of submission, rather than the halter-less freedom of superior, dedicated, sacrificing, self-disciplined athletes, who play for the love of the game.

On the playing field, the court, in the arena and eevery sports venue, the coercive coach renders the athletes as their crop, just like they would 100 yards of cultivated cotton.

In these tragic football and sports scenarios, the crop is not the cotton, but the mule-like Athletes hooked to the yoke of the Plowline. The abusive, bully coach is analogous to a mule-driver, sometimes called a mule-digger. Winning-At-All-Costs is about the Coach, not the Athlete. It is total Coach control and total football, Totalitarian football.

The abusive, coercive, totalitarian coach polices every aspect of the players athletic and private life with threats, fear and emotional extortion, like the mule digger who thrashes his ” submissive mule” tethered to the plowline.

TOUGHEST COACH EVER

Hurston’s publication Mules and Men described the control, maltreatment and cruelty of their wives and women companions by some men.

“Y’all lady people ain’t smatter than all men folks. You got plow lines on some of us, but some of us are too smart for that”. That description is very appropriate for the conditions in which our 2 main groups of athletes find themselves. 125.

Frank Deford wrote an extensive article about Robert Victor “Bull” “Cyclone” Sullivan, who coached East Mississippi Junior College in Scooba, Mississippi in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Deford described him as the toughest coach ever to coach the game of football.

He was so tough he had 2 tough nicknames, “Bull” and “Cyclone”. The old tough coach said, “There are two reasons people play football,” Bull Cyclone was heard to declare. “One is love of the game. The other is out of fear. I like the second reason a helluva lot better.” He terrorized his players and they feared him.

“Bull Cyclone” was one of my coaches during the High School All American game in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in 1961. Our South team defeated the North and I was named Most Valuable Offense Player, as running back, because of our team’s outstanding blocking and offensive play timing and precise execution. Any player can advance the ball through wide open holes in the line of scrimmage.

“Bull” was very loud and very intense when he coached our all star line. “Bull” certainly knew how to teach blocking. “Bull Cyclone” spent his own years struggling through a hungry country childhood, getting wounded and killing in close combat as a Marine and then coming home to raise a family and till a tiny plot of American soil for which he fought. Once that would have meant working 40 acres with a mule and a plow.”

In its place “What Bull Cyclone turned was a parcel of earth 100 yards long and about half as wide, scratching out boys as his crop.” 37.

Playing out of Fear was playing in response to threats and dangers from a coach. That type fear is connected to pain. Fear is a survival mechanism and results because of a specific, strong, negative stimulus. Playing American football out of fear when terrorized will later causes nightmare attacks of terror, fright, panic, and alarm, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

A player subsequent to playing out of fear and terror might awaken to imminent danger in a nightmare and manifest many emotional symptoms later in life. Most coaches don’t understand the long term affects how fear will plague a young athlete afterwards. 22.

Winning-at-all-costs to the safety, health, care and welfare for athletes and their exploitation, doesn’t take into consideration the long term impact on their mental and physical conditions.

I had the privilege, when a young student athlete, to play for my high school coach, Walter Brugh and my recruiting college Coach, Blanton Collier. Both men were outstanding, great, mentor coaches. Coaching maltreatment and abuse were foreign to me. I played for the love of the game, not out of fear.

Some of the fears that “Bull Cyclone” and his genre threatened were
• the fear of the coach
• fear of God
• fear of being called a quitter
• fear of returning to povert,
• fear of returning to the cotton fields and plowing with the mules
• ear of returning to chopping up “pup wood
• fear of disappointing father, family, and community
• ear of disappointing the high school coach and school
• ear of becoming shunned and ostracized by their hometown community
• fear of the unknown
• Southern Football Coaches were particularly notorious for coaching out of those fears

My research found coaching intimidating with fear was associated primarily with the Southern Coach. The Southern coaches’ club developed many disciples who preached those fears to their athletes if the athlete did not follow the Southern coach’s instruction.

I found no association of fear mongering because of segregation in Southern American football. But there was a definite correlation and association of players who played and responded to a fear monger Coach and poor white “lesser players”.

The tradition of mules as mascots for Army dates back to 1899, when an officer at the Philadelphia Quartermaster Depot decided the team needed a mascot to counter the Navy goat. Mules were an obvious choice, as they were used as haulers, beasts of burden, for Army gear for many military generations. 22.

This year, 2008, the Milwaukee Brewer’s acquired pitcher CC Sabathia. The reporter described Sabathia as being treated like a “rented mule”, because CC was being allowed to pitch ‘until his arm falls off’. “Well, that’s not entirely fair because the Brew Crew certainly don’t want his arm to fall off before he takes them to the World Series. But after that, whatever happens, happens”. 39. Of course, that was professional ball.

In the article about Michigan State running back Javon Ringer, early in the 2008 season, Javon was figured to be one worn-out dude this season. He was described as a “BEAST OF BURDEN”. “Ringer carried 27 times in the loss at California, the most of anyone in the Big Ten last week.”

The coach said they checked Ringer frequently and he was good to go. Ringer gained just 81 yards after 27 carries for an average of 3 yards per carry. “As we enter into every game, we’re going with Javon until he tires.” In defense of the coach, Javon wanted back in the game after he tired. 41.

Athletes are sometimes treated as “beasts of burden” like working animals for the sake of winning-at-all-costs. Mules have been considered very tough and strong draft animals who require less of everything, even water.

They can be teathered to a plowline and beaten into performing for the master. Out of fear, both the athlete and the mule are conditioned and perform for the mule digger coach, a driver in those similar situations. In those similar situations, the mule and the athlete are playing out of fear and become beasts of burden.

It is a sad commentary, but the athlete, who is brutally conditioned and plays out of fear, realizes their only sports dignity is performing like a beast of burden, similar to the Roman Gladiator, who lives to fight another day.

Beating and conditioning an athlete like a rented mule is beating the athlete physically and psychologically (emotionally), as you would beat a mule that does not belong to you.

Without hesitancy, the abusive, coercive, Coach mistreats the athlete for his or her own interest, gain and prominence without fear of reprimand from the Sports Community.

The mule digger abusive coach has no respect for the player as a human, accepts no responsibility for his or her safety, health, care and welfare, develops no positive relationship with the athlete and does not recognize the athlete when he or she is successfully puts forth extreme effort and accomplishes their playing assignment. The neglect of the 4 R’s of coaching are the full complement of an abusive coach, crossing the line, punishing and pushing Athletes beyond their physical and emotional limits. 40.

Student Athletes often reject the notion of becoming beasts of burden. They refuse to be treated and beaten like rented mules. “The elite colleges should issue the following exhortation to their students, male and female:

‘As you well know, the diploma you will receive from this institution will open the doors of influence: from medical research to non-profit directorship, from corporate leadership to stewardship of the arts. In accepting one of the precious few student seats at this institution, you tacitly accept the responsibility to society to make the most of that coveted degree. We encourage you to aim high, to use that degree to make the biggest difference you can for humankind.” 42.

Likewise the coach should, after recieving one of the precious few head coaching positions, accept his responsigility to his athletes. While the coach does not need an elite degree to become a head coach, he or she needs an elite understanding of the 4 R’s of Coaching, i.e. Respect, Responsibility, Relationship, and Recongnition.
The mentor, credible coach has a lofty, influential, position in our society. Often they have a greater influence on an athlete than the parents. Guardian or pastor.
Meanwhile, in another article the author said he “continues to drag himself through life like an ox yoked to a plow, a beast of burden. ‘I don’t know how long I can keep this up.’

Statistically, he’s right. Medical science is unequivocal. stress and overwork kills. No doubt, that contributes to their being five widows for every widower. Imagine the additional stress and overwork of the student athlete subjected to an abusive, mule digger coach, draged through athletic competition like an ox yoked to a plow. 42.
In the song “Beast Of Burden” by Rolling Stones the first verse says “I’ll never be your beast of burden. My back is broad but it’s a hurting All I want is for you to “take care” of me I’ll never be your beast of burden. “Take care” was substituted for make love. 43.

I was a better than average running back and quarterback and a student of the game. I wasn’t born into a kingdom of fabulous football players like the Mannings.
Archie Manning, and his sons Peyton and Eli are prime examples of a family of elite quarterbacks, who never became beasts of burden. These 3 elite quarterbacks were carefully guided and groomed to success and they averted the yoke and plowline of a mule digger, abusive Coach. All were properly advised, before they selected their university choice, where they would play American college football. They played and continue to play professionally for the love of the game and are the monarchs of success.

Charlie Bradshaw, the 1962 University of Kentucky abusive football coach was known to belittle our team members with a host of derogatory names.
“Turd” was one of his most popular demeaning names. Another was “damn shavetail”.

Until now, I didn’t have the foggiest notion what that meant. The term “Shavetail”, which by the Second World War meant a green officer just out of O.C.S., actually referred to untrained mules during the Indian wars of the late 19th century.

Untrained mules that did not know to line up at their own pack saddle and that might kick without warning, had their tails shaved. Mules were trained to follow a mare with a bell around her neck, and usually did not require a handler with halter line in hand. These were the Bell Sharps.

The mule is the sterile offspring of horse and donkey. Individual mules were considered to be expendable. Many mules were worked to the point that they died in harness.

There was a callous attitude of wasting its badly needed pack animals. It is easy to understand how this same attitude by general staff officers extended to the common soldier, who was considered to be nothing more than cannon fodder in the Civil War, wasted during suicide charges against machine gun emplacements in World War I.
Some abusive coaches were accustomed to wasting their recruits. They were exercised to exhaustion and worn down in body weight and some died. 44.
During Charlie Bradshaw’s first year, 1962, at the University of Kentucky individual players were considered expendable. Players were mistreated to the point that they suffered both physical and psychological abuses at the hands of Bradshaw and his Assistant Coaches.

The callous attitude by the abusive Bradshaw Coaches of wasting and chasing off UK’s badly needed players were similar to cannon fodder and targets. The Coaches were like the army officer’s attitude toward the army shavetail mules.

Bradshaw and his Assistants were grossly negligent, intentionally evil and breached their Fiduciary responsibility when coaching at U.K. in 1962.

His brutality afflictions were epidemic among his Assistants. My teammates and I can personally attest to all their abusive behaviors. Many of my teammates lost 20% and more of their body weight when they practiced and played under Bradshaw.

Most of the loss was the result of lack of water and dehydration and extreme over-exercise and conditioning. Our attrition was in size, girth and strength, health and Athletes, who pulled out from the team. Our morbidity and mortality has been documented.

Because Athletes have to be in excellent condition to perform, play and win their games, particularly American Football, coaches’ physical abuse is accepted by some. Social Approval of Child and Youth Athlete Abuse is despicable and shameful.

There is a pervasive attitude in the United States that the coach can treat and beat the players like “rented mules” for the bottom line, win-at-all-costs. Athletes don’t die while they are sitting on the bench. They die after over exertion, usually during or after running sprints of distances or drills in pre-season or conditioning.

The coach drives them or they drive themselves out of fear. The same physical, verbal, and emotional abuse would not be tolerated when handed out by a teacher in a class room. Why are they tolerated on the plying field, baseball diamond or playing court?

Frank Deford in his Sports Illustrated article said “Bull Cyclone” Sullivan of East Mississippi State was the first of the Bear Bryant clone of abusive coaches.
Bear Bryant said that he wasn’t near as tough as “Bull Cyclone”. Sullivan was so ornery that no big school would hire him as head coach; hard to imagine in those days 50 years ago.

“Bull” was a mule driver coach. In ” Scooba, Kemper County, Mississippi in 1950. The population was 16,000; today only 10,000 remain. The occupations were primarily agricultural. They planted cotton or soybeans and cut pulpwood—”pu’pwood,” as everybody says.”

“In the 1960’s Scooba’s main street had hitching posts. The state was populated by Baptists and bootleggers. Scooba was described as an impoverished outpost. “Bull Cyclone had been reared nearby—”So far out in the country you could still smell pu’pwood on his breath,” according to his old friend Carlton Fleming.”

“Bull Cyclone” as football Coach was gigantic person in that small, impoverished town. In 1961 during the High School Football All American game, “Bull”, in our team picture appeared to be a man big in stature. Nothing out of the ordinary happened during our High School All American all star practices and game from “Bull”.

Sullivan appeared to be the first to entice servicemen with the GI Bill for football. He even recruited some soldiers at various posts to abandon service for their country to play for Scooba. There were wild tales of such outsiders arriving to play football.

“Bull Cyclone” a mammoth man, who was around 6′5″ and 285 pounds, took no backtalk. The East Mississippi catalog said, We also teach good sportsmanship and self-denial in habits and attitudes. “During Bull Cyclone’s first season East went 8-3 and 21-9 for three years, which was more victories than EMS had enjoyed in its history.

“Bull Cyclone” would recruit in so many players, and then begin to weed out the ones who did not fit his abusive system, during summer practice, and then “dress out” the survivors. Bull Cyclone let everyone know his philosophy.

A player would only get a scholarship if he didn’t quit and often wasn’t given the scholarship to sign until he got on the bus for the first game. “Running players off’ was a fairly common football practice in those days. It was, for example, what cemented Bryant ’s reputation as a copy cat when he started coaching at Texas A&M in 1954.

Bear Bryant like “Bull” didn’t cut you off the team. You got “run off” the team. Or perhaps, more often, you chose to run yourself off. “Bull ran off more All-Americans than he kept,” says Don Edwards, who played quarterback at Scooba in the late 1950s. ‘We goin to ran you off” was said.

Sullivan’s old players get together, and wonder about the players who quit. It wasn’t dishonorable to get run off by “Bull”. A lot did, and near everybody almost did. The survivors wonder what ever happened to the others. C.R. Gilliam of Carrolton, Ala. said, “We’d practice four hours in the morning and then four more hours in the afternoon. I was playing defensive guard and got my nose broken. It was bleeding real bad and pushed around to the side, but Bull just kicked my butt and told me to get back in there.” C. R. went back home to Carrolton.

“About 200 of Bull Cyclone’s players became coaches, and he’d tell them, son, don’t never worry about a player who leaves. The only thing for you to do is find out why he left and work on it for the next one comes along like that.”

The ones that got run off were on their own, but the ones who stayed would be affected far out of proportion.” Bull Cyclone, like a lot of coaches, especially football coaches, had more impact on many boys’ lives than did their fathers. It was all very basic, really. “You either loved him or you didn’t stay,” says Bill Buckner, Scooba’s best quarterback, who is now the coach at Hinds J.C. “He pushed everyone to the point where they either left him or they gave him what they were capable of.

“Yeah,” says Bill (Sweet William) Gore, a retired postman who was Bull Cyclone’s good friend. “They’d think he was killing a boy out there when all he was doin’ was gettin’ his attention.” “Sure, we broke some ribs and noses going one-on-one with ourselves at halftime, but understand that what Bull did didn’t come out of cruel rural ignorance. He was a smart man and he was playing on the psyche. “Bull Cyclone made sure, though, that no one on the team felt safe. Sometimes he would advise his players, “I’ve killed more men than I can stack on this football field.” That usually got their attention.

Sgt. Sullivan had fought the last battles of the Pacific with the First Marines, ending up on Okinawa, where he was wounded on June 16, 1945. Maybe that’s why he thought he could demand so much of his players. He never quite separated war and football.

To spice up practices Bull Cyclone would sometimes have the managers wrap old mattresses around pine trees to make blocking targets. The idea was to see if anybody could slam into a tree hard enough to knock off a pinecone. Try it. Or, if he thought things were slack during a scrimmage, he would scream, “Get after it!” and the linemen were automatically obliged to choose up and start fighting one another.

From his Parris Island days, Bull Cyclone borrowed the idea of an obstacle course, adding a wrinkle of his own—a trip wire in the tall grass that the managers yanked as the weary players came through. From another part of the course, Bull Cyclone would hurl bricks at the players as they tried to regain their balance after clambering over a wall. He would miss, but barely. He did, however, get their attention.

Probably his most famous gambit was to hold scrimmages at the edge of the pond, which is located at the bottom of a gentle slope, down from where Mr. Smith’s pasture used to be. Bull Cyclone came up with the scheme in order to test goal-line defenses. He took his defensive unit and lined it up in the shallow water, which came up to about the players’ knees. Then Bull Cyclone had the offense storm down the hill. It “scored” if the running back could make it into the water.

Scooba boys were the last in the country to wear hard leather helmets, because Bull Cyclone believed that the hard modern helmets caused more injuries than they prevented. He thought his players would be better off with the nice, soft leather helmets—especially if they were decked out with skull and crossbones.

Bull Cyclone was above taking the rules as far as they could go. Among other things, Bull Cyclone threw a lot of objects, from salt tablets up to and including a huge axle-grease drum. Bull Cyclone destroyed a chair by smashing it against a table, kicked any number of things, drove his fist clear through a blackboard and, to use the singular Mississippi expression, “forearmed” a variety of stationary objects.

He would teach football players to be men, and everybody else he could to be patriots and Christians. ” The coach who had spent a life time hewing grown-ups out of pu’pwood had shaped himself into a whole man, too. He was a Neanderthal man, more backward than his Woodland Culture people.

Rick Telanders’s book, The Hundred Yard Lie, was originally published in 1989 and again in 1996. Many in sports say its message is applicable today. The message is that “college football is a corrupt system that exploits players in a money-making endeavor that has no relationship to the educational process. That corruption extends to professional football coaching”. Winning-at-all-costs can sometimes in some situations be profitable.

A few years later, win-at-all-cost coaching was infectious in the Northern U.S. From the North came Vince Lombardi who was born in Brooklyn, New York. Lombardi became famous while coaching the NFL Green Bay Packers. His famous quote was, “winning isn’t everything, its the only thing.” 22.

“Lombardi has corrupted football coaching more than any other man before or since. Because he won games and bullied his players in a way that quite literally dehumanized them. He opened the door for all kinds of abuses in the name of winning.

Telander said, “I have had several Lombardi-type coaches in my own sporting career, and not just in football, and I strongly believe they did more damage to me and my teammates than they had any right to.” The boot camp mentality of football practices only appears to be less obvious, but is still present everywhere. 23.

Lombardi was an assistant’ at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. His coaching style was greatly influenced by Colonel REd Blaik, the head coach. Lombardi was offensive line coach. Blaik’s demanded football precise execution. That would become a hallmark of Lombardi’s NFL teams. Lombardi coached at West Point for five seasons, with varying results.

Lombardi was known for his philosophy and motivational skills. Lombardi’s speeches are often quoted today. He is well known as being totally committed to winning.

Lombardi had a 105-35-6 record as head coach and he never had a losing season. His Packers recorded three consecutive NFL championships in 1965, 1966, and 1967; winning the first two Super Bowls. Lombardi died at age 57 of intestinal cancer. 22.

“Coaches who can outline plays on a black board are a dime a dozen. The ones who win get inside their player’s head and motivate” Lombardi said. 123.

Bullying, abusive coaches and athletes, who respond to bullying, abusive behaviors, are attracted to each other on the professional sport level. After all, choosing the profession of football for your income is different than a student athlete who will not work as an athlete all of his or her lifetime.

Coaches, who get inside their players’ heads and motivate them with trust and lead them as a mentor, have a more difficult cerebral task, that is appealing to the student athlete. The student athlete values x’s and o’s. From blackboards and power points they will learn to earn their living.

‘Let me abuse you and I’ll make you a man.” Coaching, then in the good old days, wasn’t exactly like the ministry. The idea wasn’t to save all the souls, but to win-at-all-costs.

That was Southern Football 50 years ago.

BEAR BRYANT

When I was about 10 years old in the early 1950’s my family would visit my uncle Melvin Wheeler, in Lexington, who lived across the street from “The Bear”. Melvin’s daughter, Linda, my cousin, and I would jump over Bear Bryant’s fence and play football with Paul Jr., who could not run, catch, kick or do anything with a football.
I never understood how the son of Bear Bryant could not play football. Paul Jr. had to have inherited his lack of ability from someone. Maybe Bear wasn’t very athletic as his admirers would expect.

Linda stayed nights with Paul Jr. and was very close to Bear and his family. Football is a stressful game for Coaches. Often they develop early illness and death. Often Bear became upset, as any Coach would after loss of a game.

The UK team bus would stop in front of Bear’s house and pick up Paul Jr. and Linda and take them to watch football practice. UK practiced on an unused part of Idle Hour Golf Course when UK was building the current practice field with Bear’s tower.
Linda had a crush on Vito “Babe” Parilli, the UK quarterback. We lived in Paintsville and I remember saying how strange the people in Lexington talked. I’ve often wondered if they said the same. Uncle Melvin was forever going to buy my brother, Maurice and me a pony. That never happened. We were townies and didn’t have a corral for that matter.

Bear Bryant had an illustrious Coaching career and developed many coaching disciples. His football coaching history began when Bear was hired by Maryland while still on active duty in the U.S. Navy. Geary Eppley, athletic director at Maryland, waited for Bryant’s Navy discharge which Eppley thought would never happen. He waited until 5 days prior to the opening game. Eppley was concerned about Maryland’s opening game and wondered about having a team with no practice and how they would be able to compete. Bryant told him not to worry they would have a completive team opening day. 1.

Bryant arrived Monday during the first game week on a bus. Bryant came to the Maryland campus accompanied by 16 men still in their Navy uniforms. Bryant rushed them to the registrar’s office, enrolled them under the GI Bill.

They began practice and appeared to be accomplished football players from the start. Later it was found out that these 16 had been practicing off the record since August while still in the military. They defeated, a small school. Guilford College of North Carolina 60-6. Maryland won six, lost two and tied one that season.

Kentucky began recruiting Bryant. The Maryland hopefuls and students revolted when they learned of Bryant’s possible departure to UK. Bear moved on to UK.
Bryant took a bad UK football team and won 7 of 10 games in 1946, after he brought in freshman who had become eligible to play after the war. He repeated his Maryland method of operation. The next,1947, season he repeated another successful schedule and Kentucky won the Great Lakes Bowl defeating Villanova.

Coach Bryant became a great “recruiter”. His tactics were questioned by opponents and the NCAA. UK was fined by the SEC, and the sanction cost a Kentucky guard from East Chicago, Ill., named Gene Donaldson, his last year of eligibility just when he was about to become an All-America.

When recruiting Donaldson, Bryant dispatched two fake priests to assure the Donaldson family that a Catholic boy could worship within a few blocks of the Kentucky campus.

This ploy was to snake Donaldson away from Notre Dame and Frank Lehey. Donaldson was charged with receiving $5,000 from a benefactor. Donaldson signed with Kentucky, but later lost his eligibility because even though the former infraction had not been proved, Donaldson’s summer employment was an infraction. Bryant’s cheating cost UK and Donaldson in the end. Bryant’s history was that of a “great recruiter.” It was gained by unethical coaching conduct as later discovered.

In 1949 Bryant and Kentucky went to the Orange Bowl and in 1950 UK won the first SEC conference football championship and his team went to the Sugar Bowl and won one of his greatest victories, beating Oklahoma, 13-7.

In 1951 Kentucky played in the Cotton Bowl, and in 1953, he finally defeated the rival from Tennessee, 27-21. Bryant resigned and left for Texas A&M, leaving an uproar in Lexington, just as in Maryland in years past.

Bryant’s ego struggle with UK basketball coach Adolph Rupp erupted after Rupp was presented with a Cadillac and Bryant just a tiny a gold watch after both had very successful seasons. That is so the tale goes.

Bryant was named athletic director and head football coach at Texas A&M. There the A&M players were subjected to physical and psychological abuse, bullying and horrific conditions. The stage was set before, and, now, was complete with the win-at-all-cost, brutal, abusive method of coaching by Bryant. Many of Bryant’s disciple coaches would later adapt his methods. 2.

More abusive disciple coaches were at large and would coach future American Football Athletes. the problem was that the disciples couldn’t pull it off like the Bear. Some never learned haw to brutalize and abuse their players and “make them like it”.
ESPN produced and broadcast a film “The Junction Boys,” an ESPN Documentary 2002, which described the abusive mistreatments and bullying by the coaches during the 1954 training camp at Texas A&M. It glamorized in a sense the conditioning practices of Bear.

Bryant abused and bullied his players down from 111 to 35 losing 76 of his players. 76 players “pulled out”. “Bryant later admitted that all the players — the ones who stayed and the ones who left — had been mistreated by him.

To coaches of Bryant’s generation, a football scholarship wasn’t an invitation to play a game but an alternative to picking cotton or working in a textile mill, or cutting ‘pup’ wood It wasn’t about a student athlete. It was about escaping poverty, hard labor and the negative expectations associaated with a hopless impoverished life.

A scholarship was about the prominance of the coach and the proceeds of the school. The coercive, abusive Coach Bryant, would coach his players out of fear. Intimidation and brutality to win-at-all-costs.

While Bryant’s background helped to explain his treatment of his players, it didn’t excuse it, a fact which, to his credit, he came to acknowledge.” The ‘Junction Boys’ documentary described how not to treat student football athletes. It described the abusive way you bully football players like plow boy share croppers, instead of university student athletes. Bryant admitted himself that he was no student He explained that he hated and defied school and its authorities.

Later at UK, Charlie Bradshaw, Bear’s disciple Coach, would reenact the same tragic football scenario. Coach Blanton Collier had recruited men of character and student athletes to the University of Kentucky to play football. I was one of those who signed with Collier.

In addition to being good students of character, there were many talented, superior, athletes and all-state football players that Coach Collier recruited. There were 8 High School All Americans among our class of 48. The 1961 UK freshman football class was the class with the most Kentucky football all-staters in Kentucky’s history.

Coach Collier was a mentor and teacher. Education and learning were the core of his football program. He knew exactly how to use the blackboard teaching X’s and O’s. Unlike Bryant and Bradshaw, Coach Collier believed that student athletes at the University of Kentucky, should be given every opportunity to suceed in their university study. He provided an environment that enhanced the student athlete’s success. He did not recruit “lesser players”, the term coined by “Bull Cyclone” Sullivan and Bear Bryant. Collier believed the most accomplished football player was equipped with intelligence, ability and passion.

After Coach Collier was dismissed, the UK administration handed off our quality players and young men of character to Charlie Bradshaw, who, like Bryant, had the plow-boy, share-cropper mentality, as it appeared from his Bad Coaching Behavior.
Bradshaw lettered four years as a player for Bryant at Kentucky after serving in the Marines during World War II. A squad of “lesser players” were Bradshaw’s kind of mules, who, like “Bull Cyclone” would say, would plow a 100 yards of pay dirt with Bradshaw scratching out lessor boys as his crop.

Coach Collier’s last class recruited at UK in 1961 and his previous classes were composed mostly of men who were too smart to to be tied to the plowline like the mules driven by an Arkansas plow boy. The plowline mentalilty was unacceptable to most of us. A handful finished their time at UK with Bradshaw. We others admired their tenacity, so to speak, but the majority had other resources and “pulled out” to further academic and/or sports careers.

Twenty-five years later, Bear Bryant attended a reunion of the “Junction Boys.” College football’s greatest abuser and bully-boy coach apologized to the players he had mistreated. The apology was explanation and characterization in and of itself of wrong that Bear had wrought. Some described Bryant as a great football disciplinarian. He was the greatest fear perpetrator, not disciplinarian at Texas A&M. Bryant was told that most of his players at A&M had forgiven him. But some wondered if his “Junction Boys” players ever reconcilled with him.

Christian foregiveness does not necessitate reonciliation, meaning the want of close association again.

Bear Bryant was buried in Birmingham, Alabama in 1983. The only piece of jewelry he took to his grave was a ring given to him by the “Junction Boys”, the Texas A&M players whom he had mistreated, abused, and bullied into the team’s aniliation.

When the Thin Thiry team of Bradshaw reunited in Lexington, KY. Charlie Bradshaw was not invited to join them at the reunion acording to my former roomate.
Bradshaw was not introduced at the UK game half time along with the Thin Thirty team. Even though a handful of players remained with him to the end, they did not think enough of him to invite them to their Reunion.

That was a very dysfunctionl family football unit. Obviously they were not reconciled. Some of the 30 said he had made them persons they did not want to be and they had difficulty after football adjusting.

When Bryant left Texas A&M for Alabama, he left the school in bad account. Under Bryant the Aggies were placed on probation and excluded from the Cotton Bowl. Bryant was watched very carefully in Texas. He had a bad reputation for his recruiting tactics. Bryant was described, like the Bradshaw, as evangelistic.

Bryant ’s penalties were disregarded because he had developed the reputation as an “innovator” in Texas football. Innovator meaning cheater and abuser. 3.
His sins were inconsequential, as usual, having to do with transportation costs illegally refunded and fishing trips with wealthy alumni. As athletic director Bryant also committed violations at Texas A&M.

Bryant went after a new basketball coach in Ken Loeffler, who had coached at Yale, the St. Louis Hawks, and who had won a national championship at LaSalle College in Philadelphia. A&M was placed on probation, because of football violations. Loeffler felt that he had been put in a terrible situation at Texas A&M. from that time forward his relations with Bryant degenerated into a near Bryant-Rupp feud. Loeffler’s program was caught giving travel funds to a prospect from the East. The probation period was extended but lifted when Loeffler resigned. Loeffler took the wrap.

Loeffler professed his innocence and said he had many accounts of violations against Bryant. He threatened to turn Bryant in to the NCAA. But Loeffler felt he would injure his family and friends at Texas A&M. Bryant’s disregard for Loeffler and players was paramount at that time. Loeffler said that investigators should look under the football table for Texas A&M wrong doings. Bryant’s methods of win-at-all-costs, early in his career, after his later winning years of football at Alabama, were buried, as the wins out lasted his brutalities. But the stage was set for several of the mental illnesses of his disciples, who would later go on to coach at high schools and universities, after playing for Bryant.

Bear Bryant was a high school All-State football player in Arkansas. When he left for Alabama, where he would play college football, his mother tied his trunk with plowline to prevent his losing his belongings. He did not have many clothes, but she new he wouldn’t lose what he had if the trunk was tied by plowline. After all, plowline was at the center of plowing. It was as tough and sensless as anything. Mules were subdued by the plowline.

Bear Bryant quit fooball at Alabama, but Coach Hank Crisp, assistant to Frank Thomas, brought him back to the team. Bryant had been talking about quitting Alabama and going to LSU. It started with Bryant’s sulking around. “Crisp called me down to his room. He had the plowline out” and said, “I hear you want to leave. Well, dammit, I want you to leave, and I’m here to help you and see that you do. Come on, let’s get that plowline out and tie this trunk up and get your tail out of here.” Maybe he called him a “shave tail”.

“Well, you never heard such crying and begging and carrying on. I finally talked him into letting me stay, Bryant said, and I never let out a peep about quitting again. Some of my boys I’ve pushed to that point, some of the real good ones.” Bryant was not made of what he expected his players to be made. The expectations of his athletes exceeded his own.

Motivation was self examined by Bryant. He wondered about the tactics he used to motivate his own players after becoming a football coach. And he wondered about what motivated himself. He believed he was motivated out of the fear of returning to the hard times he had growing up in Moro Bottom, and later in Fordyce, Arkansas. Bear Bryant played and coached out of fear, not the love of the game. How could one love a game they had no ability to play other than size. “One of the things that motivated me, that fear of going back to plowing and driving those mules and chopping cotton for 50 cents a day.” Bryant also traveled with his momma on a wagon peddling goods. His child hood was tough.

His older brothers were plow boys and hooked up the mules and used plowline to guide the mules when croppers, who got stuck up in the mud when it rained, needed help. Bryant hated it and hated every minute of that life. His parents were very religious and strict disciplinarians. They were fundamentalists. He got whipped a lot at home and in school as a youngster. Bryant was a prankster and a disciplinary problem. He said his parents never spared the rod. Was he severely abused as a child? Did he abuse and bully because of his abuse? That is the usual abusive scenario. The abused will abuse.

Bryant wasn’t very good at basketball and knew very little about football. He was always the last one picked when the teams were being chosen. Bryant wasn’t a good student and was very lazy in school. He made up for it by getting into many fights.

If you can’t beat them, hurt them. He was the last one anyone would think would go to college and get a degree. People who knew him didn’t think he would stick it out in college. He was motivated our of his own hard times, lack of athletic ability, lack of studious dedication and parental abuse. He became a bully boy abuser in his own right. He feared many circumstances. Bear didn’t block his fears, tackle his problems or keep his feet moving when the going got tough. He just became a bully.

Bryant thought about how much a man could influence another person. He relied on Coach Thomas and Coach Crisp in later years for advice. He believed you surround yourself with good people who can help you. Thomas and Crisp weren’t good at football technique, but knew what it took to win. They were motivators. Probably, win-at-all-cost motivators. Bryant described himself as a field coach and a “motivator” who did not know much about x’s and o’s on the chalk board.

By his own admission, Bryant majored in physical education but “didn’t study anything”. He never had and never did. Coach Thomas’ favorite punishment was to have Bryant and his teammates run laps at 4:00 AM. He would make them run 100 laps or pack up and leave the team. Bryant was proud of playing too soon after a fractured tibia in his leg. Playing hurt was his red badge of courage. Bryant was cut out of the same cloth as Bull Sullivan, Coach Thomas and Coach Crisp.

Bryant learned form coach Bobby Dodd at Georgia Tech. “I believe that football can teach you to sacrifice, to discipline yourself. Bobby Dodd had been quoted as saying some super-tough coaches have found they can take a group of “lesser boys”, an inferior team, and beat a superior team by super-tough conditioning (and fear).

Bryant said Dodd was right about that and Bryant was flattered “if I fall in that category”. Some teams like Georgia Tech get all those big, fine, wonderful student athletes, and the boys play about 75%. Teams that live tough and play tough and are dedicated beat their fannies seven out of nine times, which our boys have done to Georgia Tech. On examination, Bryant appeared envious of the student athlete he had never become. Regarding the fear and abuse, “Has anybody thought to ask the boys if it was worth it?

We asked our 1962 UK football teammates who were subjected to the maltreatmets of the Charlie Bradshaw regime if it was worth it and they vehemently said. “NO”.

Bryant said, “I’ve tried to teach sacrifice and discipline to my coaches and my boys, and there were times I went too far and asked too much and took our my mistakes on them. I’ve made mistakes, a lot of stupid mistakes. I know that I lost games by overworking my teams, and I lost some good boys by pushing them too far, or being pigheaded.”

“I’m older now, and not as dumb, I hope, and some things I would do differently because I know better, but that doesn’t change my mind about the value of hard work.”

Bear Bryant described himself as insecure having an inferiority complex. He said he cried often. Bryant said at Kentucky he would get so keyed up that he would stop and vomit on the ways to football. “I’ve had some terrible gut checks, too, I’ll tell you, and I’ve cried, literally cried like a baby, over some things.” Bryant was known for going to his office very early in the morning. He was a chain smoker and once checked himself in to a hospital to dry out from alcohol abuse.

Bryant preached hard work but wasn’t a model of hard work himself. Bryant was a textbook of depression. As a teenager he made poor grades and had poor school attendance. He got into trouble often and manifest reckless behavior. He felt hopelessness and insecurity because of his socio-cultural situation in life. He apparently was abused physically by his parents with frequent beatings and whippings.

As an adult Bryant manifest the depressive symptoms of inappropriate crying, empty feelings, loss of confidence, loss of temper often. He was irritable, felt miserable, had difficulty sleeping, awakened too early, had relationship difficulty, and alcohol and cigarette abuse. Both Bryant and Bradshaw represented cheating, abusive and unethical coaching conduct in their early years of coaching. Bear Bryant learned better as he matured and developed as a revered Championship Football Coach.

THE GREAT MENTOR, CREDIBLE, TEACHER, TRUSTWORTHY COACH

There is a difference between the great mentor, credible, teacher, trustworthy Coach and the abusive coercive, bully Coach.

Pat Summitt, the University of Tennessee head women’s basketball coach said, “My ideas about how to command respect have changed. I’ve learned that you can’t demand it, or whack it out of people with a two-by-four. You have to cultivate it, in yourself and those around you.”

“Pat Summitt, also said, “Appreciate the fact that you cannot lead without eager followers.” 45.

The Success of a Coach is not only measured in how many games he or she wins, but how much respect a Coach wins from their athletes. The respect earned from the players and athletes he or she Coaches is tantamount to success. Players who respect their Coach can rise to their full potential.

Coercive Coaches try to force respect from their players. Command and control style Coaching is coercive Coaching. This Coach acts like a drill sergeant and demands respect. Players follow the commands and controls so that they won’t be physically and psychologically mistreated and abused. Coercive, commando style Coaches force people to follow them out of fear.

They make athletes fear them by physically abusing the athletes. They punch, shove, kick and shake players . They punish, embarrass, belittle and yell at athletes when they make mistakes or break rules. These types Coaches are not true leaders. They are dictators, intimidators, controllers and manipulators. They use negative Coaching techniques.

John Wooden, former UCLA men’s basketball head coach said, “I didn’t want to be a dictator to my players or assistant coaches or managers. For me, concern, compassion, and consideration were always priorities of the highest order.

John Wooden said, “The most essential thing for a leader to have is the respect of those under his or her supervision. It starts with giving them respect.”

The opposite of the coercive coach is the mentor, credible, teacher, trustworthy Coach. A credible coach earns their player’ respect. They treat their athletes with dignity and respect and basically abide by the Golden Rule.

They do unto their players as they would want other Coaches to do unto their children when Coached. They show their players how much they care for them and develop a relationship with the players. They inspire their athletes to greatness.
Credible coaches carefully teach their athletes the proper techniques of playing their sport and are equipped with x’s and o’s intelligence. Athletes give their total best when they respect the coach.

Dean Smith, former University of North Carolina men’s basketball coach said, I think it is extremely important to have the respect of the players.” 45.

The core of coaching is trust. There are 3 elements of trust:
• reliability,
• sincerity
• competence.

Trustworthiness is lost when you act without these 3 elements. 47. Coach Charlie Bradshaw, UK head football Coach, exhibited none of these 3 elements.

Coaches must trust themselves first. Then the Coach will be able to recognize the trust of the players after the coach’s respect has been earned. Then the Coach will know, who the Coach can count on, or trust, during the game.

A team is similar to a religious congregation. The team must have a supportive environment built on the rocks of mutual respect and trust. The best interest of each member of the team or the congregation must be at the heart of both units. An ethical code of conduct is extremely important for the success of a team or congregation. 48.

Coach Mike Krzyzewski, head basketball coach of Duke University, defined passion as an extreme emotion characterized by being able to have your destination in sight and not letting any obstacle distract your mission for success. The emotion stems from the players love of the game. Nothing will stop that athlete.

Coach K said, “It’s all about the journey. You should live the journey. You should live it right. You should live it together. You should live it shared. Coach K’s program is based on truth. Trust must be established and earned over time.

“People want to be on a team. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves”, he says. The players “want to be in a situation where they feel that they are doing something for the greater good”.

“I believe God gave us crises for some reason—and it certainly wasn’t for us to say that everything about them is bad. A crisis can be a momentous time for a team to grow—if a leader (Coach) handles it \properly.” 49. Suffering and prayer after crisis are key.

Coaches have a difficult, time consuming, important job, that carries with the profession, a tremendous responsibility to the many involved. A great Coach must be a mentor. He or she must possess a superior knowledge of the sport they are Coaching. Getting players to play for a Coach involves a relationship built on trust.

Players rely on Coaches to frame their play, so that the athlete will not suffer undue injury and harm. During practice they count on their Coach to teach them the correct way to perform and the correct techniques of the sport. Players also count on their Coach to instruct them on correct ways to manage the ethical issues and pressures from inside and outside the program. Coaches are in a select professional category. The are in positions of power and omnipotence over young vulnerable players. They govern players on the field, in the locker room and sometimes off the field and out of the locker room to varying degrees.

The purpose of sports, in general, should be to help young athletes grow, expand their horizons and realize their own potential. The point is that it is not just producing athletes, but building young men and women to send out into our communities.

Sport builds good character………when good characters are coaching the sport.

Coaches can be life changers. The Coach must be a leader and role model. Great Coaches teach their players the values of life and how to be leaders in life. A great Coach can mentor a player into a star, a role model and folk hero for subsequent generations.

A mentor, credible Coach is a more experienced person who knows his sport. He is a trusted friend, counselor, and teacher of the less experienced athletes. Coaches advance a players career, academics and education and possibly employment opportunity.

The Coach is a senior who is wise, influential, trusted and the players supporter. The great Coach develops a lasting open relationship with the player by listening to and being attentive to the players. As a motivator the Coach compels the player to succeed by offering encouragement and support. Frequent positive feedback during practice and games builds the player’s self-esteem and boosts his or her morale. The player develops a sense of accomplishment. A player who is always in the dog house with the Coach will not be successful. Positive, constructive feedback will reinforce behavior and result in the growth of the player and the team.

If you don’t know where you are going, you will never get there. Players goals should be results oriented and attainable. The Coach mentor will show the player where he is going, because the Coach is genuinely interested in the players and has the best interest of the player at heart. Great Coaches have good people skills with players, colleagues and even the media. Football players will run through a brick wall when they trust their great Coach mentor.

The game of football, for some, has become a business, instead of a game. Football, “a once noble sport, based on hard work, individual and team achievements and sportsmanship has been degraded into a sport of greed and winning-at-all-costs, due to cheaters and abusers in some instances.

Some of our contemporary heroes are not setting a good example for future generations” in light of their cheating and win-at-all-cost mentality, in some situations. 7.

THE GOOD COACH from Dr. Alan Goldberg: 50.
He or she NEVER uses humiliation or embarrassment as a coaching tool
Genuinely cares about the welfare and well being of each athlete
Is a pro at catching athletes doing things right
Rarely raises his/her voice
Is supportive and encouraging
Builds healthy relationships with his/her athletes
Is honest and trustworthy
Creates a feeling of personal safety on the team
Is able to celebrate his/her athletes’ successes/accomplishments
Is a positive person
Understands that coaching is about doing what’s best for the kids
Has winning in perspective and defines success in appropriate ways
Tends to be flexible, yet still able to set good limits
Is friendly, non-defensive and approachable
Uses hard physical conditioning appropriately
Is NEVER physically abusive!
Communicates displeasure directly and appropriately to
Coaches by generating mutual respect
Maintains an open mind
Is a good communicator
Leaves his/her athletes feeling good about themselves
Fuels the athlete’s enjoyment and enthusiasm for the sport
Is a wonderful role model
Earns respect from players and parents
Does NOT act out his/her feelings/insecurities on his/her athletes

There are many personal relationships (e.g. Coach–parent, athlete–athlete, athlete–partner) that can impact an athlete’s performance But the Coach–Athlete relationship is considered to be particularly crucial. Their relationship is a growing appreciation and respect for each other.

Historically, Coaching has concentrated mainly on improving the athletes’ performance. Now the strength of the coach–athlete relationship is recognized. The strength of that relationship is the foundation of Coaching and a major force in promoting the development of athletes’ physical and psychosocial skills. Now more astute Coaches are concentrating on the question: “What makes the ideal Coach–Athlete relationship?’

Effective Coach–Athlete relationships are holistic. The sports system has many interactive parts. The sports system as a whole determines how the parts behave. The entire system must be evaluated, not just one or two parts. Emphasis must be placed on positive growth and development of the Coach–athlete relationship.

Relationships must be successful to become affective. These relationships must be genuinely centered on the helping the Coach improve the player. Studies have shown that the closer the Coach and athlete are, the better the athlete understands the Coach.

Coaches that create opportunities for communication and disclosures related to the athletes’ daily activities are more likely to develop trustworthy Coach–Athlete relationships. New investigations hope to develop an evidence-based approach to the practice of sports Coaching and Coaching education. The development of a science of relationships in sport settings might soon be forth coming. 51.

The problem of winning-at-all-costs and the problems that result from the Coaching mistreatments and Athlete Abuse to win-at-all-costs are many. The old philosophy of “no pain or no gain” in now determined to be a false doctrine.

Many Coaches believed and still believe that athletes need less not more water to drink during practice and games. Some misinformed abusive coaches still withhold water and athletes’ performances are worsened. The well conditioned athlete stores and burns more energy in a shorter time. It then releases more heat, requires more cooling, loses more water, and needs more water to replenish its stores.

The increased sweating response, causes more water loss. An in-shape athlete needs more water than other people. Drinking moderate amounts at frequent intervals is the best strategy during competition or practice. About one cup (six to eight ounces) of cool water every 15 to 20 minutes during an activity is about right for most athletes. Cool water (40 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit) is best.

“What is wrong with a society that places so much importance on winning in sports, that it blatantly neglects the needs and well being of the child-athletes, that it’s charged with educating and protecting?

Are we that out of touch that we’ve lost our perspective on what really matters in life? Are too many parents making a “deal with the devil” and turning their kids over to Coaches with questionable methods just because these coaches supposedly produce “champions”?

Is winning more important than the safety and mental health of the athletes? 50. Are doctors and trainers making a “deal with the devil” by clearing their patients to participate in sports activities supervised by abusive Coaches for the sake of winning while neglecting the safety and mental health of their patients?

Some Coaches place winning, as the only measure of their success, before the needs of the athletes. For them its about the Coach and not the athlete. The sport is supposed to be all about the kids. After all it is only a game. But some Coaches place their own needs ahead of the needs of the kids that play the games. These are the kids they have supervisory responsibility to protect and guide. The win / loss outcomes are more important to them than the process of participation, character development, and safety.

Lombardi used to say: Winning isn’t the most important thing. It’s the only thing? But all is not lost when the team and Coach lose a game. Lombardi was wrong.
“When winning is more important to the Coach than the experience of his/her athletes’ participation, then EMOTIONAL and sometimes PHYSICAL ABUSE are the end result.”

The end doesn’t justify the means because young athletes suffer long term physical and psychological / emotional damage. Coaches argue that their abusive ways makes them mentally tougher and physically stronger. Nothing is further from the truth as studies have shown. In fact, abusive Coaching makes them mentally weaker and physically disabled in many cases. Mistreatment and Abuse are poor Coaching no matter what the win and loss record is at the end of the season.

The damage that abusive coaches can do to child and youth athletes oftentimes haunts the athlete well into adulthood, negatively shaping their future performance experiences and relationships both in and out of competitive sports.

Depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, identity issues and recurring performance problems are often the result of this kind of negative Coaching. Abusive Coaching is a serious epidemic in our society and it’s time that responsible adults, i.e. doctors, health care personnel, other coaches, level-headed parents and competent professionals step up to the plate and drive this garbage out of the ballpark once and for all.

THE ABUSIVE, COERCIVE COACH FITS ANY NUMBER OF THE FOLLOWING BEHAVIORS:

Some coaches enjoy being called super-tough. The so called super-tough coaches must be educated and regulated when necessary. They are not investigated and regulated satisfactorily. The morbidity and mortality of athletes continues in varying degrees from Post Traumatic Stress Disorderand emotional abuse to physical abuse with injuries and death. 19.

Regularly uses public embarrassment and humiliation on his/her athletes
Is disinterested in the feelings and sensitivities of his/her players
Rarely uses praise or positive feedback
Is a yeller
Demeans his/her players
Plays “head games” with his/her athletes
Is personally dishonest and untrustworthy
Creates a team environment based on fear and devoid of safety
Is never satisfied with what his/her athletes do.
Is overly negative and a pro at catching athletes doing things wrong
Is more interested in his/her needs then those of his/her players
Over-emphasizes the importance of winning
Tends to be rigid and over-controlling, defensive and angry
Is not open to constructive feedback from players or other parents
Uses excessive conditioning as punishment
Can be physically abusive
Ignores his/her athletes when angry or displeased
Is a bully (and therefore a real coward)
Coaches through fear and intimidation
Is a “know-it-all”
Is a poor communicator
Only cares about his/her athletes as performers, not as individuals
Consistently leaves his/her athletes feeling badly about themselves
Kills his/her athletes’ joy and enthusiasm for the sport
Is a bad role model
Is emotionally unstable and insecure
Earns contempt from players and parents
Coaches through guilt
Is a master of DENIAL!!!!!

The Coach doesn’t have to be guilty of all of these behaviors to be an abusive Coach. In fact, regularly engaging in a select two or three of these is enough to qualify a Coach for abuser status. The characteristics of an abusive Coach are that he or she does not care abut the athletes. They only care about the players’ abilities and how the athlete wins for the Coach. The abusive Coach will turn on the kid who though talented fails to produce.

Some abusive Coaches are mentally ill. Mental illness among powerful people is about the same percentage as the population in general. The abusive Coach plays the explain, complain and blame game. They never take responsibility for their emotional incapacitated self. Their own development was arrested during similar abusive situations. The abusive Coach is in denial. Brainwashing brutality works for the abusive Coach because the players manifest a reluctance to tell anyone about the abuses. “What plays with the team stays with the team.” Differences will be handled within the “family”.

The abusive Coach manipulates the athletes and the victim athlete feels responsible for the abuse. ” This guilt-fueled delusion is encouraged by the coach abuser who continuously feeds this abusive distortion to the victim”. Athletes develop many negative emotions from an abusive coach. Lack of playing time, by itself, is not an abuse. Sadly, a player who sits the bench, is less likely to become an abused victim. Pulling out of a corrupt sports program and sitting the bench are the safest alternatives to playing for an abusive coach.

Feeling scared of the Coach and the situation are early warning signs of an abusive coach. Threatening messages from the coach instills a fear of talking about the abusive situation. Other signs of Coaching abuse are when the athlete feels embarrassed and/or humiliated, worried, and feels badly about themselves. They become insecure from the abuse.

Remaining with abusive Coach will hurt the athletes’ self-image, lower their self-esteem and result in depression and feelings of worthless; not to mention the risk of physical injury and in a few instances, death. Athletes are treated the way they let coaches treat them. Players should immediately discuss with the next of kin, the abusive situation and pull out of that abusive situation and head in a different positive direction. Athletes should never keep Coaching abuse a secret and allow abusive coaches to get away with their bad behaviors. 50.

Unintentional injuries to athletes are either accidental or the result of preventable, self-inflicted, abusive Coaching behavior. Coaches act as a supervisors and their protection and supervision of Athlete is dictionary-defined as actually seeing, overseeing by knowing how someone usually behaves in a given situation, directing, or managing the athlete, supervisee.

Negligent supervision is associated with an increased risk of injury. Increased supervision is associated with the prevention of athletes’ injuries.

The interactions of the athlete, the supervisor Coach and environmental factors are important. The athletes’ behavior, Coaches’ behavior and environmental conditions are in dynamic relationships and affect each of the other 2 in their interaction. They are dependent on one another in the prevention of sports’ injury as a result of their behaviors and conditions. This is the comprehensive approach to adequate supervision and prevention of injury to the supervised athlete. 52.

There is a correlation between visual supervision of the athlete, auditory supervision of the athlete and physical proximity of the supervisor Coach to the athlete and injury to the athlete. Continuous seeing and hearing of the athlete and being close to the athlete during practice aids in injury prevention.

“Every textbook dealing with athletic safety issues defines and addresses the need to supervise. The duty to supervise - to watch - to help - lowering the chance of players being injured is fundamental. So why do 90% of the lawsuits in the past 35 years, claim that the Coach and everyone else with 100 yards of an incident were negligent because of a “failure to properly supervise?”

The Coach protector and supervisor is in charge and is supposed to know all the guidelines and how they should be implemented.

The Principles of Sport Supervision are:
1. Be there.
2. Know the activity you are supervising. A skilled wrestling coach graciously covered a colleague’s rugby practice. It was the first time he ever saw the game. Luckily, no one was injured - seriously.
3. Foreseeability - Understand the potential risks of the
activity and meet your obligation to those risks. It is foreseeable someone without instruction and practice could be seriously injured if you throw him into a game.
4. Understand the numbers - There is no known coach to player ratio because of multiple factors such as age, activity, experience and level of risk. Foreseeability, training and common sense determine the appropriate number. One swimmer supervised by an untrained lifeguard is wrong. Thirty ruggers supervised by a trained coach is appropriate. Two players taught how to tackle by someone without the knowledge is a poor ratio. It is also wrong.
5. Inspect the field and any equipment before you use it. Do it every time.
6. Review the procedures before the activity. Warn the players about what can happen if they do not follow these procedures.
7. Know your players. Know their strengths and weaknesses. Don’t place a player in a position that increases his/her potential for injury.
8. Make sure that everyone knows you are present, in control and available - and that you care about them. What does caring have to do with the topic of supervision? Everything! If you care about people, you will care about supervision and that increases safety.
9. Is this the right site for the activity? A dedicated mid western coach wanted to continue practice after being chased off his field by the park maintenance people. He moved the team to the parking lot. When a player fell twenty-five feet over an embankment onto a cement walkway while trying to catch a kick, the jury did not forgive the coach because of his dedication.
11. Signs help. Use warning and information signs in the clubhouse on in your manual, but please do not rely only on them to prevent accidents.
12. Understand the different faces of supervision.a. General - This is normally an observational duty as opposed to a teaching hands-on situation. It is watching people participating in activities they know. An example might be a tennis coach watching her team practicing on eight courts. You should be accessible. You should be visible to the players. You should continually scan the area.b. Specific - This is direct, and usually one on one instructional supervision. An example might be a gymnastic coach working on a new skill with one player. The higher the risk of injury, the more specific the supervision.c. Real Athletic Supervision - This is supervision. Some call it rotational, alternating or “general-to-specific-and-back-again.” It is when you are overseeing the team, then help one player, while you continue to scan the entire area. This is the type of supervision coaches need to know and need to practice.d. Absentee Landlord - This means no supervision. This leadsto injuries and law suits. This is wrong.e. “Rotten” Supervision - Your body is present - your mind is somewhere else. A dedicated coach was working on the travel itinerary for a holiday tournament during drills run by high school players. A boy broke his leg. The coach was sued for a lack of supervision several months later.
13. Supervision is not watching every player, every moment in every possible situation! That is impossibility. In general, the courts have said you must provide adequate supervision. Adequate supervision is that which prevents an unreasonable risk of harm to the participant.
Supervision, 101 - Or, The Techniques of Supervision We Seldom Talk About:
a. Place yourself in a position where you can observe all the players. A hard working coach placed himself in the middle of the pitch. He observed players at both sides of the field. When he was observing one group, he was not observing the other group. If he moved to the sideline or rotated outside the activity, he would have been able to see more, more often.
b. Think before you establish you coaching position. A coach placed himself in the center of two lines of players working on tackling. The better site would be at the end of the line. He could then see all the players without having to turn his head.
c. Rotating or moving about the team is appropriate. By rotating around the outside of the practice area, the coach can see more of the practice. Vary your movement patterns.
d. When you offer specific supervision to one player, you do not abrogate your general supervisory duties. The biggest mistake I see is when a coach positions him/herself in such a way, that when helping a single athlete, their back is to the other players. The coach needs to place him/herself in such a way as to help one individual while being able to easily observe the other players. Remember you are supervising all the players. Avoid spending too much time with one or two individuals.
e. Scan the entire area continually - This is the habit of constantly observing the area in a systematic manner, even when you are providing comments to an individual. You scan the area from right to left, left to right, up and down, and continually. In the beginning, it is a good idea for teachers to consciously scan a class. Practice will make this automatic. The key is to be constantly vigilant. More on the technique of “Scanning” next month.
f. Does your style of supervision include what to do when or if there is an injury? You must have a plan. Stop the activity. Send for additional help. Do you have the emergency number next to the nearest phone? How are your first aid skills?
g. Yes, there are times when a person should not supervise.
1. When you don’t know the activity.
2. When the site in unsafe.
3. When you have too many people to watch.
4. When you see lightning.
k. Wear a whistle and use it. It’s a great control device.
l. Teach your assistants how to supervise. Good supervision isn’t “brain surgery,” but it does require more instruction than “just be there.” Appreciating and practicing the techniques of supervision will lower the rate of injuries - and law suits. That’s good.” 53.

CHILD AND YOUTH AMATEUR ATHLETE HUMAN RIGHTS DISORDERS
CHILD AND YOUTH AMATEUR ATHLETE PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ENDANGERMENT, MALTREATMENT THAT CAUSE SERIOUS INJURIES AND/OR DEATHS AND SEXUAL ABUSE

This section only describes Child and Youth Amateur Athlete Physical and Psychological Endangerments, Maltreatments that cause Serious Injuries and/or Deaths.

The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) was enacted into Federal Law in 1974, CAPTA has been amended several times but was most recently reauthorized in 2003 and titled The Keeping Children Families Safe Act. All states have Child Protection Laws, because all states receive federal grant money to authorize child abuse law and are therefore mandated to follow the federal guidelines.
All 50 states have statutes providing state child protective service (CPS) agencies that have the authority and mandate to accept and investigate reports of suspected child abuse.

CAPTA defines abuse as a recent act or failure to act that results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation, or imminent risk of serious harm; involves a child; and is carried out by a parent or caregiver or supervisor, who is responsible for the child’s welfare. 56. Teachers and Coaches are included.
Child and Youth Endangerment and Maltreatment are major public” health problems. Even Child and Youth athletes who experience abuse are at risk for behavioral, learning, physical, and mental health problems.

The morbidity and mortality for patients with abusive head trauma is especially high. Concussions in Sports have prompted enormous concern recently including Concussion State Laws.

Now has been established a clear connection between child maltreatment, including Sports, and many of today’s most important societal and public health problems, including alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, suicide attempts’, smoking, severe obesity, ischemic heart disease, and cancer.

A primary responsibility of Doctors is recognition of the signs of child abuse. Reporting the suspicion to the appropriate authorities is the secondary obligation. Physician child abuse recognition education is the key.

A report of suspected child maltreatment is not an accusation. Rather, the suspicion is a call for additional investigation by authorities to help determine whether child abuse actually has occurred or not.

Physicians never should underestimate their importance when acting as advocates for all children and youth including child athletes. The physician who performs their duty to act on behalf of a child and youth including an athlete suspected of being abused is one of the most important advocates a child can have. 55.

Information on specific state laws are provided by the Children’s Bureau:
http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/laws_policies/search/index.cfm

Clinicians in the 50 United States are mandated by law to report suspicion of child abuse. There are some differences concerning the mode of reporting (written, telephone, and online) among states. If a child has serious injury or death caused by suspected neglect or failed custodial protection or supervision, the Doctor should report this to child protective services.

Child abuse reporting is mandated in all 50 US states, and specific guidelines for each state are available to clinicians. Generally, clinicians should be able to recognize suspicious injuries, perform a comprehensive examination and auxiliary tests, detect injuries, report child abuse, and document injuries for the legal process if unfortunately necessary, among other evaluation and management strategies. 58.

Child and Youth Athlete Abuse is a global crisis. “England footballers have urged young players suffering at the hands of bullies to take immediate action. The advice came during a joint initiative between the FA and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children to stop abuse and bullying in the sport, The FA hopes the new policy will help protect children from verbal, physical and sexual abuse as well as bullying. FA chairman Geoff Thompson said: “Through this initiative it is our stated aim to ensure that everybody is better prepared to play their part in the protection of children. “We are committed to developing a culture in which children can play football in a safe and enjoyable environment.” 54.

Child maltreatment is behavior toward a child that is outside the norms of conduct and entails substantial risk of causing physical or emotional harm. Four types of maltreatment are generally recognized:

• physical abuse
• emotional abuse (psychological abuse)
• sexual abuse
• neglect

The causes of child maltreatment are varied and not well understood. Abuse and neglect are often associated with physical injuries, delayed growth and development, and mental problems. Diagnosis is based on history and physical examination.

Management includes documentation and treatment of any injuries and urgent physical and mental conditions, mandatory reporting to appropriate state agencies, and sometimes hospitalization or other steps. 60.

Child Abuse movement began in the United Kingdom. The NSPCC was founded in 1884 as the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (London SPCC) by Benjamin Waugh. After five years of campaigning by the London SPCC, Parliament passed the first ever UK law to protect children from abuse and neglect in 1889. The London SPCC was renamed the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1889, because of agencies across Great Britain and Ireland. The first child cruelty case in Britain was brought by the RSPCA; the court charge list described the affected child as “a small animal”, because at the time there were no laws in Britain to protect children from mistreatm. 22.

Every parent who has been on a playground, baseball diamond or youth-soccer field can tell about coaches who insult, harass, and belittle their young children. Behavior that no parent or administrator would tolerate in a classroom often seems acceptable on America’s playing fields, and rarely anyone protests, probably parents fear retaliation. However, many in the sports community, including parents, are saying they’ve had enough. They want to purge youth sports of the physical and emotional abuses that result from the emphasis on winning-at-all-costs, abuses which have long been called “part of the game.”

Educators and children’s health advocates are seeking more supervision and training for the millions of coaches and volunteers in the U.S. who oversee the approximately 45 million boys and girls who participate in youth school and non-school sports leagues each year, Many amateur Coaches at public schools and non-school leagues are often untrained.

The National Association for Sport and Physical Education has published comprehensive standards for all levels of coaches. The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, along with several other medical groups, has produced a program called “Play It Safe” that provides safety guidelines for youth sports. Train the volunteers who coach the children, and teach parents what to look for in a youth sports program.

“I don’t think that parents and coaches mean to be mean,” said Beth Campbell, the National Youth Sports Coaches Association’s coach of the year. “They just don’t know any better.” Experts believe that no more than 20 percent of youth-league coaches have received even minimal training in the technical aspects and safety features of the game or in child development. States do not require it, nor do the majority of youth sports leagues.

Some sports programs, such as Pop Warner Little Scholars, are trying to move in that direction. The national youth football league offers coaching clinics that cover the technical elements of the game, child psychology, sports medicine, and risk management.

For the most part, the millions of volunteers tend to coach the way they were coached themselves or to mimic professional or collegiate coaches. Abused players, who become coaches, are often abusive. The incompetence of far too many others can nullify the physical, emotional, and social benefits sports are supposed to instill.
“Anybody who wants to coach–certainly at the recreational-league level–can coach,” said Harvey Dulberg, a sports psychologist in Brookline, Mass., and a board member of the National Youth Sports Safety Foundation. “We have parents who don’t understand children in some cases,” he said. “We have parents who don’t know anything about first aid and stretching. “That ignorance can lead to mistreatment of children.

Occasionally, the lack of oversight leads to physical abuse. Though such incidents make headlines, experts say that far more common are the unintentional physical, psychological, and emotional wrongs committed by misguided or untrained coaches.
Each day, hospital emergency departments treat more than 8,000 children less than 18 for sports injuries. Yes, daily! “If you teach kids good habits in organized sports, then even if they’re playing a sandlot game, they’re going to pick up a batting helmet,” said Dr. Letha Griffin, an orthopedic surgeon in Atlanta, who helped produce the “Play It Safe” program. But the untrained coach may not know the good habits and not know any better.

Unlike older athletes, young children are more susceptible to injury because their bones, muscles, tendons, and ligaments are still growing. Yet in soccer, for instance, coaches often call for repetitive header drills, which require the players to butt the balls with their heads. If done improperly, experts say, these drills can cause injury. CHT, closed head trauma, of young athletes is a monumental injury condition that cause acute injury and can also precede morbidity and illness of adults in later years.
Persuading coaches to learn and follow proper safety procedures is only half the battle, experts say. Equally daunting is the task of weaning coaches away from behavior that would seem shocking in other situations, but has come to be accepted on the field or in the gymnasium.

The coach who inquires of a player, “Why can’t you run faster? “The coach who punishes players for being overweight, or for dropping the ball. The coach who plays only the best athletes while the rest sit on the bench, or who tells an injured player to “tough it out like a man”.

Some municipalities and school districts have set rules that would deny leagues access to fields and other athletic facilities unless they train their coaches.

At the first-ever summit on child protection in youth sports, some participants urged that leagues require coaches to have training. Others worried that too much regulation would drive away volunteers who lack the time or the money for training. Although some, like Fred C. Engh, the president of the National Alliance for Youth Sports, advocate legislation that would require training of coaches, they realize there is little support for such an approach in the regulation-cutting atmosphere now prevalent in Congress and many statehouses. 61.

Parents, coaches, volunteers and teachers have a responsibility to make sure children are protected from abusive situations. Abuse is any action, physical or verbal, which exploits or potentially harms or damages a child’s physical, emotional or psychological health. When a child is abused, he or she often experiences abuse by people older than them, usually by people they know and trust. Physical – where a child is intentionally injured or made to do excessive exercises as punishment. Emotional – where a child is made fun of, criticized, discriminated against, or put under an unrealistic pressure to perform. 81.

Child abuse is any form of physical, and or emotional mistreatment or lack of care that leads to injury or harm. There are four main types of child abuse: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and neglect. Verbal or Emotional Abuse are more difficult to define. Verbal and emotional abuse can happen without any physical contact. It can be verbal abuse if someone yells all the time and calls an athlete mean names. Yelling, punishing, and threatening too much of the time, an athlete can start feeling really bad about himself or herself. And just like with physical abuse, the athlete must tell trusted adult this is happening. 63.

Policy and Procedure manuals in all hospitals and clinics contain sections on reporting abuse. Every health care personal should recognize and report abusive behavior according to law. Since the first law was passed by Wyoming in 1963, all states have enacted some form of mandatory child- abuse reporting law. 65.

“Mandatory reporting and screening laws are proliferating, and emergency physicians must be aware of the laws or risk criminal charges and malpractice claims. Most laws specifically provide physician immunity with respect to breaches of confidentiality whenever reports are made in good faith. These laws reflect a societal need to identify and intervene on both the medical and legal aspects of certain problems such as infectious diseases, adverse drug reactions, child abuse, elder abuse, and domestic violence.

The coroner, the state departments of motor vehicles, departments of health and social services, CPS, County Attorney, law enforcement, the medical board, and the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) are some of the authorities to which emergency physicians are required to report. Everyday emergency practice requires awareness and compliance with myriad reporting laws.” 64.

So who should report physical or emotional / psychological child abuse in Kentucky? Any person who knows or has reasonable cause to believe that a child is abused shall immediately cause an oral or written report to be made to a local law enforcement agency or the Kentucky State Police; the Department for Social Services; the Commonwealth’s Attorney; or the County Attorney. Unless requested by law enforcement, the Department for Social Services investigates only those cases of abuse or neglect alleged to have been committed by a parent, guardian, supervisor or other person in care, custody or control of the child.

The law requires physicians, interns, registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, hospital personnel engaged in the admission, examination, care or treatment of persons, social services workers and mental health professionals, among others, to report immediately all suspected cases of child abuse. 70.

For example, Max Gilpin of Louisville PRP High School was the third high school football player to die this year (2008) in the United States of heat-related injuries, and the 33rd high school, college or professional player since 1995, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at the University of North Carolina.
Dr. Frederick Mueller, the center’s director, said that all heat-related football deaths are preventable if proper precautions are taken, including providing players with plenty of water and rest. 20.

Mueller said that all heat-related football deaths are preventable if proper precautions are taken, including providing players with plenty of water and rest. 76.

Studies of hundreds of heat-stroke victims on athletic teams and in the military show that all survive if immediately immersed in a kiddy pool with cold ice water, said Dr. Doug Casa, director of athletic training education at the University of Connecticut.
“You always survive if you are cooled right away,” said Casa, who headed an 18-organization task force on heat illnesses in 2003 that included the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Association of Athletic Trainers.

When the coach inflicts or allows to be inflicted upon the player physical injury by other than accidental means and creates or allows to be created a risk of physical injury to the player by other than accidental means is child athlete abuse.

The Center for Sports and the Law describes negligent supervision by a coach. The following are the 4 elements of coaching negligence:

1. a duty of care is owed; Duty not to expose players to unreasonable risk of injury.
2. the duty imposes a certain standard of care;
3. an injury or damage occurs;
4. and the damage or injury as a result of a breach in the standard of care. 21.
Doctors are clearing athletes to participate in sports presently into both good and bad playing conditions. That Must Cease. Every doctor should add to their physical examinations over their signatures, only cleared to participate in sports with proper Child and Youth Protection and Supervision.

Doctors performing sports participation physicals should also perform histories and physicals on athletes where there is suspected mistreatment (coaching physical or psychological abuse) of the athlete, the same as if it were sexual abuse. Abuse is Abuse.

Examples: over exercise, lack of drinking water, playing in dangerous heat index, dangerous Air Alert, stress fractures from overuse, poor equipment, unsafe techniques, like spearing in football, playing while injured, death from heat stroke etc.

Child and Youth Athletes should go for a sports participation follow-up examinations and report to doctors in their histories of their mistreatments and abuses by a coach. This would be a confidential history and physical exam.

DISCIPLES AND ILLNESS

The elite athlete appears to be more sensitive to respiratory infections gastroenteritis, leptospirosis, herpes simplex and viral hepatitis. Over exercise contributes to the severity and complications of the elite athletes’ ilnesses. If myocarditis is suspected athletes should not have strenous exercise. Guidelines are suggested for the management of athletes suffering from infections, including recommendations on when to resume training. Illnesses with fever cause muscle wasting, circulatory problems and decreased motor coordination. 121.

Charlie Pell, a Bear Bryant disciple, and assistant to Bradshaw at UK from 1965-1969 suffered with severe depression. Pell made a public service documentary about his depression for the state of Alabama. His documentary was a very noble achievement and a source of public information.

Many football players and coaches suffer mental and physical illness. Ofetn the mental and physical illness is the result of physical and psychological abuse by other coaches. Multiple head injuries have been shown to result in severe mental illness to players later in their lifetime. A traumatic brain injury is characterized by loss of consciousness, confusion, amnesia for the events, and other neurological signs. Concussion often results later with loss of mental functioning and memory, migraine, seizures, dizziness, and depression.

These illnesses range from simple injury to catastrophic injury, to death, to post traumatic stress disorder, to other neuroses and psychoses.

Over training and injury can lower the player’s immune system and make the athlete more susceptible to other diseases, too i.e. heart disease.

Similarly, post traumatic stress disorder among the Vietnam Veterans results in a greater prevalence of early death and disease. 20% of the UK Freshmen who continued with Bradshaw are currently deceased.

10% of the UK 1961 Freshmen who pulled out from Bradshaw are deceased. Like post traumatic stress reaction of the Veterans. many of our freshmen have premature diseases from stress reactions and injury.

. An investigation of the association between prior head injury and the likelihood of being diagnosed with clinical depression among retired professional football players with prior head injury exposure. Depression is the most cited psychological disturbance after traumatic brain injury, with prevalence rates from 6% in cases of mild traumatic brain injuryto 77% in more severe TBI] within the first year after injury. Retired players reporting three or more previous concussions (24.4%) were three times more likely to be diagnosed with depression; those with a history of one or two previous concussions (36.3%) were 1.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with depression. 4.

Concussions can trigger a chemical chain reaction in brain neurons that leaves an athlete disoriented, unconscious, or dead. They can also impair learning over a period of years.

Barret Robbins, Oakland Raiders Pro Bowl center, suffered from severe depression, a mental illness. “The demons running loose inside Barret Robbins’ head put theplayer in a San Diego hospital on Super Bowl Sunday”. The physical power of his 6-foot-3, 320-pound body was no match for the illness. Like anyone else, athletes can be ravaged by the emotional and physical toll that comes with depression. Worse, athletes’ reluctance to deal with their condition, the jock environment that makes them ashamed of their perceived “weakness,” and physical side effects brought on by medication add up to the most troublesome foe they will ever face.”

As athletes, we are taught to be tough,” said former NHL all-star Pat LaFontaine, who has battled depression. “You get up and shake it off. But you can’t do that with depression. For me, the harder I tried, the worse it got.” Spiraling into shadows so dark she thought she’d never get out, former U.S. Olympic diver Wendy Williams once collapsed in front of her refrigerator, overwhelmed by something as simple as deciding what to eat. She quit getting into her car for fear she would drive off a cliff to escape her misery. 78.

Harry Carson, middle linebacker with the New York Giants was a celebrated defensive football player, smart and agile, selected for the Pro Bowl even during years his team couldn’t eke out a winning season. Above all, he was known for aggression. After a collision a dazed, Carson dusted himself off and walked back into the Giants’ huddle—and as he stood holding his teammates’ hands, everything went black. He didn’t faint. He didn’t stop playing. For a few minutes, though, he found himself unable to interpret his coach’s signals from the sidelines. He couldn’t call the next play, as the middle linebacker is expected. Blackouts like these were becoming familiar sensations for Carson. Over 13 seasons, he estimates he received between 15 and 18 concussions.

It was only toward the end of his career that he began to exhibit the cumulative effects of all these hits, signaling what his doctors would later call postconcussion syndrome. Carson developed headaches and muscle twitches. He grew sensitive to bright lights and loud noises, making it difficult for him to sit in a busy restaurant or do a television interview. He’d lose track of time: Until recently, athletes like Carson were of little interest to scientists. With dozens of football fatalities each year in the 1960s, particularly at the high school level, researchers were much more concerned with on-field catastrophes. “When someone dies, that catches everyone’s attention,” says neurosurgeon Robert Cantu, medical director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research. “It’s not surprising that fatalities in football have been tracked since 1931.”

Thanks to better protective equipment and safer coaching techniques, football deaths have now dropped to single digits each year. The decline has allowed scientists to focus on more subtle traumas, and concussions are chief among them. Neurosurgeons have shown that even a minor ding can trigger a neurological cascade that can eventually cause cognitive dysfunction and mental illness. Among retired football players who have sustained three or more concussions, 20 percent have been diagnosed with clinical depression—more than three times the rate of players who never got a concussion.

Almost half of those are taking antidepressant medications, and most report that the condition impedes their normal daily activities, such as shopping for groceries and going to work.At the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center, neuropsychologist David Hovda has studied the cascade of these injuries. An injured athlete may be oblivious to the neurochemical cascade inside his brain. “You can see a broken arm,” says Carson. “You can see a torn ligament in the knee. But with a concussion, you don’t see it.” The effects show up in statistical research.

In 2001 Kevin Guskiewicz, research director of the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was surprised by the depression statistics. Athletes with no concussions had a lifetime diagnosis rate of 6.6 percent. That is about the same as the general male population. Once they suffered three or more traumas, however, the rate skyrocketed to 20.2 percent. The depressions, can interact with other health problems to destroy the former athletes’ lives. The depressions have a snowball effect. The football player is retired from football, overweight, has musculoskeletal problems like sore knees, ankles, hips, not exercising. and life begins to go downhill.” 79.

Many other sports other than American football are plagued by concussions. Soccer, hockey and baseball are examples. Matser and Lezak compared the results of swimmers and runners and found the soccer players were three to four times more likely to show deficits in memory and planning skills. The more concussions players suffered, the lower their scores on three of the 16 tests. Lezak is unsurprised. “I know what happens when you bat on the brain,” she says. “Given what we know about boxing, it would have been surprising if we hadn’t found anything. In soccer, people are punishing themselves in much the same way boxers do.”

THE BRADSHAW EXPERIENCE

Jim Bolus, my teammate on the 1961-1962 UK freshman football team, wrote and article for the Louisville Courier-Journal Newspaper, in 1981. He said, “when UK football players became disenchanted with the tactics of the new coach, they left the team in droves 20 years ago. They endured all the scorn ever heaped upon hapless “quitters”, but many forged from the trauma of that time the drive to pursue goals greater than gridiron glory.” And they did achieve lofty goals.

In that article was quoted Lindsay Able, another teammate, who commented, “I remember Bradshaw said, the guys that quit will be quitters their whole life. They’ll be eating hamburgers and you guys who stay around here will be eating steak”. We have news for Bradshaw. We, who “pulled out” from his program, are eating steak today. because we did not fall for his bologna in 1962.

Teammate Roscoe Perkins said, ” you can’t treat people like a bunch of animals and beat on them and do the things that they did”. The players who “pulled out” became: 4 doctors, 1 dentist, 1 veterinarian, 7 lawyers, private business owners, investment brokers, real estate brokers and agents, teachers, members of the military armed forces, 1 sports writer and coaches. 28 of 32 had college degrees and 7 masters degrees.

Of 48 players only 5 completed playing-out their eligibility at UK. Leaving a corrupt football program is not quitting. It is called “pulling out” for a better direction and career tract. Remaining with a corrupt football program is not believing in the Coach and his system. Staying with a corrupt coach and program is often the only choice a player has.

I signed to play my college football and study Pre-Medicine at the University of Kentucky beginning in the Fall of 1961. Head coach Blanton Collier promised me that I would have time and receive UK’s blessing and support to study Pre-medicine.

We players were shocked and dismayed when Coach Blanton Collier was fired at the University of Kentucky at the end of the 1961 Fall semester and replaced by Charlie Bradshaw……..”A grim commando mood has hit football. It is especially evident at Kentucky, where the coach is commanding total dedication to victory.”

Charlie Bradshaw, the replacement for Coach Blanton Collier in 1962, said, “men you are in for a tremendous experience- you will be part of a winner…” “Bradshaw had adopted the Bear Bryant’s philosophy……the only thing that matters is victory, no matter what it costs;…….” Bradshaw’s record reveals he won 38.6% of his games during his tenure as head University of Kentucky football coach. What actually turned out was a horrific, tragic experience; not a tremendous experience.

What is a commando? A commando is a member of a military unit, commanded by a authoritative person, designed for quick hits. In other words they sneak up on another enemy unit and attack them while they are vulnerable. Charlie Bradshaw was a commando. He and his assistants punished the University of Kentucky football players by sneaking up on them from the side or behind when they weren’t looking and sucker-punched, forearmed, and kicked the players. They attacked and beat them when they were down. 5.

“Bradshaw had adopted Bear Bryant’s philosophy. He thrived on hitching each player to the plowline like a mule. His first intention was to break down and brain wash each player. Bradshaw wanted to subvert the integrity, code of conduct, character and dignity of each player. Emotional and physical abuse and brutality were his methods.
A mule digger can physically beat down a plow mule with beatings and brutality. An abusive coach acts similarly. The abusive coach, like the mule digger abuses the mule, bullies the mule into submission with physical and verbal abuse. The plowline is the ultimate mule and player control line.

Bradshaw’s assistant Bob Ford in the 1962 Sports Illustrated article said, “Some players don’t realize that what we are doing is for their own good”. “I believe in coaching. We teach the word of Christ. …… “The poor boy we make rich, give him a chance to improve himself, to gain an education and become rich in useful experiences this is his salvation.” Bradshaw and Ford preferred the “lesser player”. None of our UK players were “poor boys”. To the man, we were at least rich in spirit and love of the game until the Bradshaw thugs arrived. We were far from poor whites and lesser players. Our team had many superior players.

The term “lesser player” was introduced by Bear Bryant to the media. Assistant Bob Ford described the poor boy, above. The Bradshaw regime will give the player a chance to better himself, become rich, get and education, and even learn about Christ because Football will become his salvation. In other words, the players who have no other opportunity to “pull out” and save their ethical code of conduct will tolerate abuse. That is the only attention they get, even though it is abusive attention. They are hitched to the plowline.

Bear Bryant, during an interview in 1966, appeared to describe a” lesser player” as a less heralded, known, ranked, skilled, talented recruit. And possibly a dumb recruit, who was a “lesser player”, that the Bradshaws of the Coaching “profession” used to call a peon.

Bradshaw at UK said, ” take pride in yourselves, to be good Christian men. Your studies will come first. “But an assistant said ” Get to bed. We’ll tell you when to study. Football comes first right now.” One player said, “At first I was impressed with Coach’s tie-in of Christianity and football. But now I’m convinced it’s nothing but hypocrisy. Christ taught love. Charlie Bradshaw teaches us to punish, to destroy the other man.”

Both Bryant in his early years, until he found our better, and Bradshaw and some of their assistants were bully boys. They intentionally caused harm to their players through verbal harassment, physical assault, and manipulation. The coach of an amateur athlete possesses more physical and/or social power and dominance over their players, who sometimes become their victims. The harassment can be verbal, physical and/or emotional.

Bradshaw’s assistant, Bob Ford, had two pictures on his bedroom wall, when at UK. One of Robert E. Lee and the other of Stonewall Jackson. Pointing to Lee, the intensely serious Ford said to a visitor,” You see this man here? He was a real Christian gentleman. He taught a Sunday School, But he went out and killed, didn’t he ? ”

“If it sounds a bit totalitarian, it is. It is total football……….”3.

Bradshaw and Ford treated the UK players like mules hitched to a plowline. In the Red Badge of Courage, Henry’s battalion fought like a pack of mule drivers or mule diggers. Mule drivers or mule diggers implied a derogatory term of an uncouth, uneducated workers or white soldiers. The red badge represented a bandaged wound, his “red badge of courage”. Fighting and playing football like plow mules on a plowline and sacrificing their bodies gaining red badges of courage, are not enough to win against better prepared, skilled, talented, experienced, superior players with character, coached with the tenor of sportsmanship. Players treated like “lesser” creatures or chess pieces cannot succeed against superiorly coached teams with superior players. 18.

I prayed for Charlie Bradshaw’s soul and the Charlie Bradshaw family last Saturday night, August 9, 2008. I was praying, also, for my forgiveness of Charlie Bradshaw. At my age of 65 years, what was the impetus for this action? Didn’t I have more pressing issues and people to pray about? After all, it had been 46 years since I played football at the University of Kentucky. The line between toughness and downright ignorant thuggery clouded Charlie Bradshaw’s football practice and play, to the point that the things coaches were doing, during practice in 1962 at the University of Kentucky, would have led them to criminal prosecution today, in 2008.

How do we get rid of the erosion of sportsmanship in football. Thuggery doesn’t belong in our once noble sport. Our vision is clear. We recognize and admire the toughness, but we must sort out and eliminate the bully-boy thugs. It had been a year, August, 2007 since the book The Thin Thirty had been authored and published by Shannon Ragland. It revealed the untold story of Charlie Bradshaw’s first year, 1962, as the head football coach at the University of Kentucky.

It was a true story and the publication was a factual account of the coaching brutality and abuse. This revelation was about the physical and psychological abuse by Bradshaw and his coaching staff. It told about the brutality, and the physical and psychological abuse delivered to the University of Kentucky football players.
Ragland conducted interviews with every player involved, that would talk and that he could find.

In the 1962 Sports Illustrated article about the Kentucky football program, “By mid September before KY played its first game, 53 players had quit the squad. ” 58 of the 88 players of Kentucky’s football team pulled out during Bradshaw’s first year, 1962. Preseason conditioning was Brainwashing Brutality was preferred rather than the usual football conditioning. Brainwashing is also known as thought reform or as re-education. It is a program aimed at instilling certain attitudes and beliefs in a person or an athlete. Brainwashing beliefs are often unwelcome attitudes and beliefs, and are in conflict with the athletes prior beliefs and knowledge. The brainwashing program contains tactics and content that are subversive to the athlete’s individual value systems and thought patterns and behaviors because they are based upon unethical codes of conduct. 22.

My tragic story about my football experience during the Bradshaw regime had been suppressed for many years. I was never able to tell my story until The Thin Thirty interviews. After reading the book and reuniting with members of our team, a upsurge of memories began surfacing. Never had I dreams with coaches voices, before that Saturday night to Sunday morning.

Charlie Bradshaw buried my football career, my football dignity and respect in a mass grave with the careers of my teammates. The wounds from the losses and my grief for my losses were covered up in that grave. But The Thin Thirty uncovered the wounds and brought a light that shinned on my mental surface. Many of the suppressed memories of my football tragedy were uncovered once again.

During this past year my Bradshaw wounds have been slowly granulating-in, from inside to out. The healing process has been retarded because of the continuous recurrence of new stories from old players and teammates. The stories, as they were reported and discussed about and from my teammates, were like the layers of a onion. Each layer that was pealed brought a new sadness about our players and team.

I didn’t know Shannon Ragland. Initially, I was reluctant to be interviewed by Ragland and had no idea what Ragland would write concerning my participation in the story. What Ragland described about me was learned in my interview and his research in Paintsville. KY at the Paintsville Herald and interviews with Coach Walter Brugh, my high school football coach, and many others.

From the time I “pulled out” from the Bradshaw football program and moved on toward a different career direction, medicine, and up until the time that I read the The Thin Thirty, I had suppressed and buried any recollection and remembrance of what had transpired during my tragic University of Kentucky football experience. The tragic football story affected me subconsciously. Only now, do I realize the post traumatic stress reaction that I suffered these many years, after our football team’s mental health study and survey.

After many of my teammates and I read The Thin Thirty, we discussed it and forgiveness became and issue. About half of the players had forgiven Bradshaw for his physical and psychological abuses and mistreatments of them and about half did not, our survey revealed.

However, I don’t believe any player reconciled with Bradshaw, because no 1961 UK Freshman player would have allowed their son to play for Bradshaw in his state of mind in 1962 according to the answers of our study and survey. We also determined that “pulling out” from a corrupt football program was not quitting, because we who “pulled out” moved on in a different career direction and became successful.

We did not tuck our tails and run. Bradshaw and his teams suffered. From the 1961 UK Freshman football team, 8 members received professional football opportunities after finishing their careers at other universities, rather than UK. None who remained with Bradshaw from our class advanced to the professional ranks. I hold those 8 who “pulled out” in my highest football regard for their accomplishments and good judgment. Likewise, I hold the remainder who “pulled out” in my highest professional regard for their accomplishments and good judgment, because they all became successful, contrary to what Bradshaw said they would never do. “You will never amount to anything if you leave my team”, he said.

Bradshaw, the self professed, Christian evangelist, acted out a false Gospel. People’s behavior communicates their beliefs about God. To behave differently than God behaves, and not as children of God, or not as Brethren or Sisters in His Church, communicates something false about God’s Gospel. To forgive sin under all circumstances and unconditionally, communicates a false Gospel of God. It is not what God does. God’s forgiveness is conditional. The Lord’s forgiveness is not unconditional. It is contingent upon repentance of the trespasser or sinner. Christian’s forgiveness is contingent upon repentance of the trespasser or sinner, also.

Forgiveness is not a unilateral act. The trespasser must participate somewhere along the line and repent. He or she must change their ways. Christian forgiveness requires that the trespasser repent. If a trespasser is dead and did not repent and ask for forgiveness before you, then it is up to God to forgive him of his trespasses. God alone at that point knows his heart. Reconciliation is different from forgiveness.

Reconciliation is a condition that puts two people back on friendly terms again, after a dispute or mistreatment. A friendly relationship results when 2 are reconciled. Therefore, even for the players who forgave Bradshaw, few would want to be on friendly terms with him or his assistants. They would not be the people that my teammates would have a beer with, today.

It was while I was in my bed, preparing to sleep, that I finally realized that Charlie Bradshaw in 1962 suffered from a mental illness. Previously, I had not been a good enough Christian to forgive him prior to that Saturday night. I realized that Bradshaw could not help his mental illness and was not directly responsible for his illness and his behaviors and actions as a result of his illness.

Unfortunately, our team and other teams, subsequently, were abused by Bradshaw, while his mental illness remained undetected and untreated. How many people in leadership positions actually are functioning with an active mental illness? How many coaches suffer daily from mental illness? Do the symptoms of their illness adversely affect the athletes whom they supervise?

Bradshaw never had a diagnosis or was offered treatment for his suffering, that we were aware. That was his main problem. He remained on his coaching job during his illness. In retrospect, it appeared that he manifested an emotional mental condition. It appeared that he manifested a manic delusional identity. He appeared in retrospect to have delusions of grandeur and thought he was Coach Bear Bryant. He was a disciple of Bryant having both played for and assisted Coach Bryant, before Bradshaw became coach at UK. One of his assistant coaches said Bradshaw later in life became ill and died a lonely, unhappy, impoverished man. His family denies that description.

As a physician, I took the Hippocratic Oath. The Hippocratic Oath is an oath taken by physicians concerning the ethical practice of medicine. Historically, the oath was written by Hippocrates, the father of medicine, in the 4th century BC. In 1964 Dr. Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, revised the Oath and it is used in medical schools today.

The Hippocratic Oath begins with “I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:” There are many covenants within the Oath. The following covenants are pertinent to my relationship with Charlie Bradshaw and this, my story:
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures that are required.I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play, but worship God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm. If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

The sobering facts about my football experience are that my obligations to the human race, as the result of God’s gift to me for my opportunity to practice medicine, are more important, than football. I am dedicated to the administration of the covenants of my Oath of Hippocrates to all human beings, including Charlie Bradshaw.

Thus my forgiveness of Charlie Bradshaw was the result of being a Christian physician. God gave me the gift and I forgave Charlie Bradshaw. In forgiving Charlie Bradshaw for his transgressions on me, I fulfilled the Gospel of God, as a physician. My forgiveness was from my heart filled with the connection with God, a manifestation of my spirituality. My practice of medicine had always been from my heart not my billfold. My practice of medicine, one of the 8 fields of knowledge, was one of the main ways I worshiped God. Medicine connected me spiritually with God
After awakening I told my wife that I had forgiven Charlie Bradshaw for abusing me, because I finally realized that he was mentally ill and as a physician I must do everything possible to heal him, even in after his life. Even though I could not reach his physical being, his soul was within the reach of a physician’s healing prayer.

Then, my wife and I went to the Centenary Methodist Church in Lexington, Kentucky that Sunday to hear my nephew Mark Minix Jr. play the largest pipe organ in Kentucky. He played all the songs for 3 services. Mark Jr. is one of a very few his age who is accomplished for the pipe organ in this area. So it was a special event for us. Were we proud of his performance.

During the service the minister preached forgiveness. She used Forest Gump and Jenny as an analogy. Jenny who had been abused by her father fell down in front of the house she had been abused in and began throwing rocks at her old home. Forest said there are never enough rocks to throw, after she ran out of rocks. The minister said, like Jenny, we needed to throw our burdensome rocks away and forgive our trespasser. Jenny had been sexually abused, a different form of abuse than the abuse in my story.

After she instructed us, while walking out of the of the sanctuary, I tossed a piece of paper into the trash can with the words “I forgive Charlie Bradshaw for abusing me in football”.

That same Sunday morning was the first morning that I woke up to the sounds of abusive coaches in my dreams. I have had night mares about our team’s football abuse at the hands of Bradshaw and his thugs. But never had I heard the sounds in a dream. I heard the screams and yelling of the coaches and the moans and groans of my teammates in the handball court. I could see us doing the elephant walk (bear crawl) around the handball court. The thermostat was set as high as it could be set. Some said it was 120* in the hand ball court. There were vomit boxes in all 4 corners.

As we circled the hand ball court occasionally a player would vomit in a box. The boxes were filled with saw dust. One coach had the job of fetching saw dust for each practice. “Copper Head” Hawkins was said to be the fetcher. He was an extremely disliked person, because of his abuse to players. He bragged about running a player to death at another “institution of higher-learning” before coming to Kentucky. He was a dementor coach who would suck the air and life that surrounded any player he encountered.

One player collapsed and “One Eye” Bud Moore, a coach from Alabama, grabbed him by the seat of his shorts and the nape of his T shirt and ran him head first into the end of the handball court wall. The player fell lifeless on the floor. “One Eye” and assistant Bob Ford each grabbed a leg and drug him out the door and threw him into the hallway. They slammed the door when they returned, came back in and we continued without missing a beat.

A lifeless player had no value to those coaches. He was part of my group. In each room we players did similar drills under similar sweltering conditions. The first room was a room with a blocking sled with wood wrapped in towels. No Cushions. We had not shoulder pads. We hit the wood until some shoulders began bleeding and some players injured their shoulders. We were dressed in shorts, T-shirts and tennis shoes (sneakers).

The last room was feature bouts. We lined up in a circle around the room. The coaches called out 2 names. The 2 went to the center and fought it out until one was pinned. When you won you went out. If you lost you stayed and fought another and another until you won.

It was extremely hot in each and every room. I did what I was told during preseason conditioning and adapted to the commando survival test. The conditioning was beyond my physical limitations, but I endured and survived. I “sucked it up”.

During the preseason conditioning I was always on the 110% list that was posted on the bulletin board in the hallway of the practice center before each practice. I sustained a left knee injury, during preseason conditioning, that was later determined to be a lateral collateral and meniscus injury. I missed one day of preseason conditioning for whirl pool treatment and was taken off the 110% list. I was pissed. So I went back and practiced with the wrapped bad knee and got back on the list.

I was doing what the coaches wanted me to do and doing it well. The exhilaration of becoming “gung ho” commando became a source of concern to me. I wasn’t becoming the adult I wanted to be, because I was likeing commando. Becoming a commando, what Bradshaw wanted me to be was bitter-sweet. I came out of preseason conditioning with an injured left knee but in good standing with the coaches except for one minor difference.

Bradshaw on 2 occasions sent assistant Coach Chenck Sengel to fetch me at the ROTC Building. The first time was at the beginning of the Spring Semester during preseason conditioning. The second was deep into the semester during Spring Practice. Both meetings were the same. He demanded that I quit my Pre-Med studies and forget becoming a Doctor.

Specifically he wanted me to drop Botany on Tues and Thursday morning and take his PE course. That PE course was just another football practice 2 mornings each week. They were unsanctioned practices.

During the second meeting, that took place in the Spring Practice cycle Bradshaw got furious and threw my books at the coaching office window. I went around the desk and gathered my books up and he told me to go over and get in the corner and work it out with God.

That I did and told him when he returned that I would continue with Pre-Med and “pull out” from his football regime. I told him he wasn’t going anywhere with his football and I wasn’t going there with him.

His football offensive scheme was extremely simple-minded and very unsophisticated and a far cry from any resemblance of Collier’s West Coast football offense. In other words he and his assistants didn’t know what they were doing on the offensive side of the ball. I determined that I would have a better chance at success in life on the side of a medical team.

Under Coach Collier as a freshman I lead the UK Freshmen in passing, punting, total offense, and interceptions. I was captain of our Freshman Team and President of our freshman football house. I had a 3.1 over all in Pre-Med my first Fall semester under Coach Blanton Collier.

I was on Bradshaw’s 110% preseason conditioning list and maintained a 3.3 GPA overall the Spring semester of 1962.

Under Bradshaw I was doing what the school (UK) and Bradshaw wanted me to do except for one thing, trying to become a Doctor. Bradshaw was stubborn and unknowledgeable enough to miscalculate his omnipotence and my decision after his demands. I was never a poor plow boy.

I would not submit to a hitching to Bradshaw’s plowline and his ultimate, coercive, totalitarian control. Thinking about our confrontation, in retrospect, I concluded that Charlie Bradshaw was sick.

Why was Charlie Bradshaw so sick, sadistic, bombastic, ultra-religious, and abusive? Why did he not respect his players as members of the human race and why did he treat them inhumanely. Why did he not act responsibly for our health and welfare. Why did he not develop a good positive relationship with his players and why did he not recognize their accomplishments with at lest a pat on the but for a job well done?

The 1961 University of Kentucky Football Freshman Team was a fleeting moment of UK football history. That is a sad statement. The history began with the hope and promise of success at the University of Kentucky after each player committed to a covenant with Coach Collier and his All-Star assistants.

But it became a lifetime of pathologic syndromes for all the players with resultant morbidity and mortality, after Coach Blanton Collier was replaced. He was immediately replaced after the end of the first semester of 1961 and during the beginning of the Spring Semester of 1962.

The players had no fore warning prior to the tragedy. And there was no intervention afterwards. The University never admitted their wrongs and has never apologized to the players for their mistreatments and crimes, even until this day. They did not intervene with psychological transitional help. God knows we needed it.

The University of Kentucky committed a tragic Breach of Trust and their Fiduciary responsibility, when they replaced Coach Blanton Collier with Charlie Bradshaw, because of the impact on the health and welfare of the players and the loss of scholarships of the players instigated by Bradshaw.

The players were, after the Coaching change, suddenly faced with a football regime, that included the University of Kentucky administrators and Athletic Board, who had no respect for the players and who did not act responsibly to the players. Everyone concerned with University of Kentucky football program, from the president of the University down, breached the covenants with the players and failed to keep the best interest for each player at the heart of their commitments.

From the surveys we conducted, it appears that Charlie Bradshaw was not mentally or professionally competent to become head football coach. His incompetence affected the players and will continue to affect the players for the duration of their lifetimes.

Post Traumatic Stress Reaction has affected and will affect the quality and duration each players life. Some of the assistants identified with Charlie Bradshaw and his pathologic state of mind and his mistreating sadism. Together they acted out Bradshaw’s sickness. He appeared to be a manic depressive megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur combined with a sadistic disorder.

Did Bradshaw die sick, ashamed, alone, remorseful, homeless, destitute and on drugs? Some have claimed those facts. The players do not know for sure. Some have suggested those possibilities.

In spite of Bradshaw’s illness and the players’ Post Traumatic Stress and other disorders, that were the results of his illness, most of the surviving players, who “pulled out”, have become successful in their businesses, professional and personal lives, while carrying Bradshaw’s scars.The successes that resulted from “pulling out” from the Bradshaw regime and moving in other directions from him, have been revealed. The successes stand as a reminder of sweet revenge for many of the players. Revenge appeared to be independent of forgiveness.

About half of the players have forgiven Bradshaw. About half have not forgiven Bradshaw and do not intend to forgive him and his assistants. 100% have not and will not reconcile with Bradshaw as evidenced by the studies, because no player would want Bradshaw to coach their son in Bradshaw’s incompetent pathologic and unprofessional condition, that he exhibited in 1962. No player embraced Bradshaw’s methods.

Bob Ford, Bradshaw’s ring leader assistant, is now practicing law in Wynne, Arkansas. He has asked for forgiveness from a few of the players and expressed regret and sadness acording to some.

If you travel along the Great River Road in the heart of eastern Arkansas’s Mississippi River Delta country, the road, designated a national scenic byway, will lead you from north to south to Wynne Arkansas, through this rich agricultural kingdom where cotton, rice, soybeans and wheat flourish in some of Arkansas’s richest soils. The Arkansa’s Cotton Grower’s Organization, is in Wynne.

Famous notables from Wynne are Bud Brooks, who won college football’s Outland Trophy in 1954, garnering the award as a member of the heralded “25 Little Pigs”, the moniker given to the 1954 Arkansas Razorbacks football team and Hugh “Bones” Taylor, a former Wynne Yellowjacket, who played wide receiver with the Washington Redskins from 1947-54, and was honored as one of the 70 Greatest Redskins in 2002. Taylor was later the head coach of the Houston Oilers in 1965, and was an assistant with the New York Titans, Pittsburgh Steelers, and the San Diego Chargers. 22. Hugh “Bones” Taylor, coached the North team that I played against in the Hign School All American game in 1961.

The mural by Ethel Magafan in Wynne, Arkansas depicts the grief and hard work of “darkies picking cotton” and it expresses the shoulders, backs, legs and arms aching from too much work and too little control over their lives. Not far from Wynne is Stamps, Arkansa where Maya Angelou was reared. Maya wrote about the cotton picking environment of her child hood in Stamps in ” I Know Why The Cajed Bird Sings”. 81.

1954 is legendary in Arkansas football history. Nicknames for the team were tagged the Amazing Razorbacks and the twenty-and-three Little Pigs, finally shortened to the 25 Little Pigs. The players were small, few and fast. The thread of plowline coaches, mules and 100 yards of cotton, a familiar story, was woven in Arkansas.

John Barnhill coached Arkansas from 1946 thru 1949. The Razorbacks were 22-17-3 with one SWC championship and two bowls. Barnhill reluctantly made the switch from the single wing to the T formation for the 1949 season but had a 5-5 record. The health problems of Coach Barnhill surfaced in the 1948 season. His illness later was diagnosed as multiple sclerosis. He decided to devote full time to the athletic director?s responsibilities. Barnhill hired Coach Bowden Wyatt from Wyoming to Arkansas. Both were Neyland trained Tennessee men.

He considered Kentucky’s Paul Bear Bryant. Wyatt said, “A boy has to want to play football before he can play for me? Out of his first spring practice came the thinnest, smallest varsity squad to represent Arkansas since the war years. 1953 was the “rendering season”. “The original Junction Boys without the junction.” It is said that some 250 pounders were rendered down to 185. They got as mean as the did lean. 83.

There have been many Caged Birds, Pigs, Mules and Plowline Coaches from Arkansas an now we know “Why the Caged Bird Sings” and revenge Rings among the “pullouts” who flew away from UK Football and Charlie Bradshaw to successful careers and lives.

PUNISHMENTS AND THE GOLDEN RULE

Coach Collier disciplined players by running laps or running the player to the fence and back. One rhyme the players said about a rather large fat UK coach was ” Big Bad Coach fat in the crack, all he could say, ‘was to the fence and back’.” On the UK football practice field to the fence and back from the opposite side is a lengthy sprint.

Punishments also might be staying after practice and going over and over a drill and doing push ups. Players not on time would come earlier the next day according to the time loss. If the team won or if we practiced great and performed well out, we ate steak at the training table.

When we lost or didn’t practice good and didn’t go all out, we ate burgers. Either way we ate good. The difference was the reward was even better eating. Elvis Humble’s letter forwarded by his wife for the Reunion emphasized those facts. Elvis’s letter, about the changing football and living conditions, was a gut wrenching description of going from elation under Coach Collier to severe desperation and gloom under Bradshaw.

Under Collier, no one ever went without eating. If we missed study hall we were given extra study hall. If we made good grades we did not have to go to study hall. If we were late for study hall, we came the next day early.

If there was disorder in the house, he would call the president of the house (me for Kitten Lodge) and I would hold a meeting to straighten out the disorder. Coach Collier let the players govern themselves to a certain degree

In the football house. I always used the Big guys as sergeants at arms. No player was ever hit, butted, kicked, played when seriously injured by Collier coaches.
The only time I could play ping pong in the football house rec room was when the big linemen had to go to study hall. I couldn’t take the paddles away from the big guys and didn’t try.

Coach Collier practiced that performance mistakes should not be punished, particularly, when there had been excellent effort. He believed that performances mistakes were part of the learning curve for players. Consequences needed to be seen by team members as fair and appropriate for misbehavior/ For each team rule Coach Collier had consequences arranged in order from least to most severe. We knew up front what the rules and punishments were.

Punishments should consisted of logical consequences that followed naturally for misbehavior . If we were late for the bus, the bus left without us. If we were late for the practice, we arrived early next practice. Coach Collier punished behavior not the player. He let the player know the behavior was being punished, not the player, and the player’s behavior had to be changed. Coach Collier and his assistants used punishment calmly, rather than knee-jerk in an over-reaction. Collier never seemed to punish out of anger. He was not hasty to apply punishment. Coach Collier considered the misbehavior over a period of time, before applying punishment.

Rather than adding something unreasonable, he took away something desirable that would result in less resentment for punishment of bad behavior.

The abusive coercive mule digger doesn’t hand-pick the thoroughbred horse and the abusive coercive Coach doesn’t select the superior player. Why recruit a thoroughbred and make him pull a plow?

Most of the “pull-outs” from Charlie Bradshaw were not mules. They had more respect for themselves than submitting themselves to coaching abuse. “Y’all lady people ain’t smatter than all men folks. You got plow lines on some of us, but some of us are too smart for that”. [125. Mules and Men]

Thoroughbreds and superior athletes are self driven and dedicated. Both just need training and coaching-up and then turned loose. Like the Thoroughbred, “give em the bit”.

Charlie Bradshaw abused the 1962 University of Kentucky team down from 105 players to 30. Rather than trying to plow a cotton field with a few mules, why wouldn’t Bradshaw want to reap all 100 yards of cotton with the entire team.

As an inexperienced new disciple of a Bear Bryant disciple in Louisville said, “You may beat us playing the game , but we want you to leave the field knowing you played a tough football team.” If you don’t believe him look at his red badge of courage. He, like the other abusive coaches before him, won the shouting but lost the war.
Abusive, inexperienced coaches set unattainable expectations and goals for their players with negative preparations. The plowing cannot be finished and the cotton cannot be reaped, if you don’t have enough team, no matter how often you beat your mules.

As Bear Bryant said, “I’m older now, and not as dumb, I hope, and some things I would do differently because I know better”. “Has anybody thought to ask the Junction Boys if it was worth it?

In 1939, in his book Farewell to Sport, Paul Galico wrote, “College football is one of the last great strongholds of genuine old-fashioned American hypocrisy……If there is anything good about college football it is the fact it seems to bring entertainment, distraction, and pleasure to many millions of people. But the price, the sacrifice to decency, I maintain, is too high.” 23.

Some have written that some Christian Coaches might be too good to coach American Football. An article was published about the Georgia Bulldogs’ (whom were picked to finish No. 1 in 2308) head coach, Mark Richt. The article described how nice Coach Richt is and wondered whether he had the toughness to succeed as a college football coach. 82. Just before Vince Dooley, then Georgia’s athletics director, offered Mark Richt the head football coaching job after the 2000 season, he spoke with Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden. Richt had spent 15 seasons with Bowden’s Seminoles, primarily as offensive coordinator.

“The one thing that worries me about him is he’s too nice,” Bowden told Dooley. Seven seasons later, Richt is still as nice, but also has won nearly 80% of his games, becoming one of only nine coaches in major-college history to record 70 or more wins in his first seven seasons. He also restored the glory, glory to old Georgia, as the fight song goes by winning two Southeastern Conference championships. Richt isn’t just nice, he’s a Christian. And Christian coaches will always have to answer the “passion gap.”

Fans want someone who is as passionate about their team as they are. And a “Christian” countenance can often be misconstrued as an inverted priority, particularly for southern college.

This addresses a broader issue about Christians in demanding high stress positions. There are so many positions in this world that seemingly require one’s heart and soul. Whether you’re talking about being a world class physician, business executive or sports figure the challenges are the same. How do you apply yourself in a career that demands your all? How does one keep Christ first? These are challenges that many Christians deal with on a daily basis. Sometimes, we succeed and praise God and sometimes we fail miserably. but we should never cease to make the Word of God our Lord, regardless of where we are. Sports are not our Lord.

John D. said, “There is a fine line between competitive sports that teach teamwork, effort and mental toughness in the best tradition of “muscular Christianity” and blood sport that degrades and destroys human beings for the gratification of the masses.”
Apostle Paul was not ashamed to compare the Christian life to an athletic race (I Cor. 9:24-27; II Tim. 4:7). On the other hand, Christians in Paul’s era were frequently the victims of gladiatorial games. It was Christianity that eventually put an end to the savage spectacles in the Coliseum, a brutal form of entertainment that football and other pro sports, at their worst, sometimes resemble.

1Cr 9:24
¶ Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.
9:25
And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they [do it] to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.
9:26
I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air:
9:27
But I keep under my body, and bring [it] into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
Hbr 12:1
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset [us], and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
12:2
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of [our] faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
12:3
For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds
12:4
Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

Coach Richt doesn’t tether his players to a plowline or beat them like rented mules. He utilizes the 4 R’s of coaching i.e. Respect, Responsibility, Relationships, and Recognition. Coach Richt doesn’t tether, but influences his players with positive coaching and positive expectations utilizing the Rein of the Word of God. Coach Richt doesn’t treat his players like beasts of burden but children of God. The Golden rule is important to Coach Richt and his team, as it should be to every Coach.

COACH BLANTON COLLIER RECORDS

Blanton Collier
College Georgetown, 1927
Date Of Birth 1/1/1907 in Millersburg, KY
Died: March 22, 1983 in Houston, TX

University of Kentucky Career 8 years W41 L36 Tied 3
1954-1955 7-3 .700
1955-56 6-3-1 .600
1956-57 6-4 .600
1957-58 3-7 .300
1958-59 5-4-1 .500
1959-60 4-6 .400
1960-61 5-4-1 .500
1961-1962 5-5 .500

Cleveland Browns NFL
G W L T
1963 14 10 3 1 .714
1964 14 10 3 1 .769 NFL Champions
1965 14 11 3 0 .786
1966 14 9 5 0 .643
1967 14 9 5 0 .643
1968 14 10 4 0 .714
1969 14 10 3 1 .769
1970 14 7 7 0 .500

Career UK and Cleveland W 116 192 games W60.4%

CHARLIE BRADSHAW RECORDS

Charles “Charley” Bradshaw
College - Kentucky, graduated 1949
Date Of Birth 12/31/1923

Record
Kentucky 7 25-41-4 .386
Troy 7 40-27-2 .594
Career 14 65-68-6 .489

1962-63 Kentucky 3-5-2 .300
1963-64 Kentucky 3-6-1 .300
1964-65 Kentucky 5-5 .500
1965-66 Kentucky 6-4 .600
1966-67 Kentucky 3-6-1 .300
1967-68 Kentucky 2-8 .200
1968-69 Kentucky 3-7 .300

1976-77 Troy 8-1-1 .850
1977-78 Troy 6-4 .600
1978-79 Troy 7-2 .778
1979-80 Troy 6-3-1 .650
1980-81 Troy 8-2 .800
1981-82 Troy 3-7 .300
1982-83 Troy 2-8 .200

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THE GREAT COACH

THE GREAT, MENTOR ,CREDIBLE, TRUSTWORTHY COACH

Football Coach Blanton Collier was a Great, Mentor, Credible, Trustworthy Coach.

He recruited Football Student-Athletes, men of character and stressed academics at the University of Kentucky.

How is it that he continues to have the best Kentucky football record against Tennessee of all coaches including Bear Bryant?

How was it that Coach Collier had so many assistant who were disciples and all star, successful coaches?

How was it then that Coach Collier was removed as head coach after the 1961 season? That was a very perplexing question.

People Magazine February 04, 1974 “University of Kentucky football fans were unhappy with Coach Blanton Collier in 1959, and they wrote a lot of letters complaining and asking that he and his incompetent aides be gone. The staff was gone by 1961.”

“Of the eight coaches, exactly eight went on to success in pro football, five of them becoming NFL head coaches. Ther were Ed Rutledge, an NFL scout; Howie Schnellenberger, head coach at Baltimore; Ermal Allen, assistant coach at Dallas; Collier, who succeeded Paul Brown at Cleveland and won an NFL championship; Don Shula, of whom you may have heard; John North, head coach of New Orleans; Bob Cummings, his assistant; and Bill Arnsparger, who is taking over the New York Giants. Another Collier assistant, Chuck Knox, was on the staff in 1961 but not in 1959. He was just named Coach of the Year following his first season with the Los Angeles Rams. Fired anybody else lately, Kentucky?”

Coach Bear Bryant claimed that he preferred the “lesser” player as compared to the student athlete that his perennial rival Coach Bobby Dodd of Georgia Tech preferred.
Coaches Bryant and Dodd had that discussion. Bryant, who described himself as a field coach rather than an x and o coach, believed he was more successful motivating the “lesser” player to win football games. The lesser player feared returning to the cotton fields in the early days of Bryant’s career and would do anything to stay and play football.

In Georgia Tech Sports, October 22, 2004 article by Bill Curry -
“We were coached by our own living legend, “The Gray Fox”, Bobby Dodd. He and Coach Bryant were longtime friends, and the Alabama coach was fond of saying, ‘When I look across the field on game day I would rather see anybody other than that damn Dodd. He can beat you with his brain.”

“Coach Dodd was a General Bob Neyland disciple and understood the wisdom of ball security, field position, and error-free football better than anyone else in his era. He also made public reference to the fact that he wanted his boys to have fun playing football and refused to allow us to scrimmage during the season. Rival coaches found this appalling and said so. In that era football was supposed to be a daily gutcheck, not fun.”

On the other hand, the daily gutcheck was playing and practicing out of fear. Not playing for the love of the game. Playing out of Fear is playing in response to threats and dangers. Fear is connected to pain. Fear is a survival mechanism. Fear results because of a specific, strong, negative stimulus from interaction with their coaches and their sports participation environment. Fear is the key to abusive coaches:

Propaganda. Abusive Coaches threaten:

Fear of returning to poverty
Fear of the Coach
Fear of God,
Fear of being called a “quitter”
Fear of disappointing father, family, and community,
Fear disappointing the high school coach and school,
Fear of becoming shunned and ostracized in hometown
Fear of the unknown.

By Mark Story / Herald-Leader Sports Columnist, Nov 23, 2008

“I came to work for the Lexington newspaper in 1990. In that time, I’ve never seen a UK win against UT on a football field. It’s now 23 games since anyone has seen Kentucky beat Tennessee at football. Yet for a stretch of the 1950s, Adolph Rupp’s basketball Cats went a tidy 15-0 against the Orange……

During the same period, UK football — with Blanton Collier coaching Kentucky for all but one of its victories — went 5-2-1 against the Vols. “It was amazing,” says Kay Collier-McLaughlin, the middle of Blanton and Mary Forman Collier’s three daughters. “Beating Tennessee meant so much to Kentuckians. “The energy before those games and at those games and after those games, it was incredible.” Commercial flights to Mars seem more likely than another prolonged period of Kentucky football dominance over the Rocky Toppers……

So I asked Collier-McLaughlin, who wrote a biography of her father, Football’s Gentle Giant: The Blanton Collier Story, what she remembered from her Dad’s days as a Big Orange killer. “The Beer Barrel exchange used to be an amazing thing,” she said of the symbol that used to go annually to the UK-UT winner. “After we’d won several years in a row, Tennessee got frustrated and would try to steal it.

“So, the week of the game, the job of the UK freshmen was to guard the Beer Barrel.” To put in perspective how unique in Kentucky football history was Blanton Collier’s hold over Tennessee, consider:

■ In his tenure at Kentucky, Bear Bryant went 1-5-2 against Tennessee. Collier, Bryant’s successor, went 5-2-1.
■ Since UK axed Collier after the 1961 season, Kentucky has only beaten Tennessee in football six times.

After Lexington, Collier went on to coach the Cleveland Browns to the 1964 NFL championship. Browns fans remember Collier’s tenure as a golden age of Browns football.

He remains the last head football coach at Kentucky to leave the school with a winning record (41-36-3). Collier died in 1983. Those who believe in karma see UK’s continuing futility against Tennessee as payback for dismissing the only coach in modern times who could consistently beat the hated Volunteers. “People have said that to me over and over and over again,” says Collier-McLaughlin.

The great all-pro running back Jimmy Brown of the Cleveland Browns said of Coach Blanton Collier, ” I was prepared for his football genius……but I wasn’t prepared for his humanity”.

A Great Coach must be a Credible Mentor Coach as well as knowing the sport he or she coaches. Getting athletes to play for a coach involves the Trust factor. Players Trust a Great Mentor Coach.

Athletes rely on Coaches to frame their game play, so that the athletes will not suffer undue injury and harm. They count on the Coach to teach them the right way to perform and correct techniques during the game and practice and the correct way to manage their conduct and behavior. The Great Coach prepares the athletes for pressures from inside and outside the program on the more advanced school level.

Coaches are in special professional positions and in a category of their own. They are in positions of power over young and adult, vulnerable players. They influence the players everywhere, both in and out of the playing environment.

Coaches must win games while developing athletes’ characters. After a period of time, Coaches who do not succeed at both, are not tolerated. Sometimes in desperation to succeed they commit crimes against players, the school and society. These Coach dementors who maltreat the Athletes are the exception, not the rule. There are many Great Coaches in the United States, who do not get the credit they deserve.

Coach dementors are the result sometimes of pressure to win. Few parent coaches would recommend their own children to coaches who employ emotional and physical punishment as a means to winning.

Lombardi said “winning isn’t everything … its the only thing”. Few would accept coach dementors as the means to that end. Winning-at-all-costs is the modus operandi of some Coaches and schools. Many of their players are abused. Some Schools turn a blind eye to abusive Coaches. Winning is not the “only thing” when players are abused.

The purpose of sports should be to assist the growth of athletes, expand their knowledge and develop their potential. Sports is not about just producing athletes but building young men and women into our leaders of tomorrow. Unethical, dishonest, immoral behavior should not be tolerated for the sake of winning sports competitions. The dictum is often misrepresented.

Sport builds good character……only when good characters are coaching the sport.
Coaches can dramatically influence the lives of athletes. The Coach must be a mentor, leader and role model. Great Coaches teach their athletes the values of life and living. A Great Coach can mentor a player into a star, role model and a hero for many generations.

A mentor is a more experienced person who is an expert in the sport. The Coach will become a trusted friend, counselor, and teacher of the less experienced athlete. Great Coaches prepare a players athletic career, academics, education and employment opportunity. The Coach is a senior who is wise, influential, trusted and the players’ supporter.

The Mentor Coach is a teacher, guide, counselor, sponsor, advisor, and role model. The player learns athletic skills and knowledge about the game. The Coach develops a lasting open relationship with the player by listening to and being attentive to the players’ concerns and needs.

The Coach motivates the player with encouragement and support. Frequent positive feedback during practice and games builds the players’ self-esteem and boosts his or her morale.

A sense of accomplishment results. Athletes who are always in the dog house with the Coach will not be successful. Positive, constructive feedback, will reinforce behavior and result in the growth of the player and the team.

If you look and concentrate, then you will see. Blanton Collier said if you don’t know where you are going you will never get there. As a UK quarterback, we had a drill in which we practiced our eye movements as part of the timing of the “West Coast Offense” which Coach Collier has been credited.

Athletes goals should be within reach, foreseeable and attainable. The Coach Mentor will show the player where he or she is going.

As a role model, the Coach Mentor is a living example of the conduct and athletic knowledge, as demonstrated. The Coach Mentor for the Athlete is supportive, encouraging and patient. The Great Coach is respected by the players and his coaching peers.

A Coach Mentor is genuinely interested in the players, has the best interest of the player at heart and has good people skills with players, colleagues and even the media. As an effective teacher and motivator the Great Coach will inspire the players to greatness.

The core of coaching is trust. Trust is achieved from the Coaches’ honesty, integrity, knowledge of the game, guidance, inspiration and motivation. Nothing can be accomplished without trust. Lack of trust breeds fear, uncertainty and doubt. Relationships and teams are torn apart from lack of trust. The more the trust the more the victories.

Athletes will run through the proverbial brick wall when they trust their Coach Mentor. When Coaches talk about toughening-up their team and athletes, they must realize that trust by players of the Coach is as tough as it gets and the result of earned concern for the Athletes, not abuse. Coach Mentors should be the schools’ Coach search objective. Players, parents and society should beware the Coach Dementor and insist on better.

As the result of an ideal Coach Mentor, the player will take pride in his team and his Coaches. The Athlete will understand his mission and role as a player and become a better team player and a better role model and mentor in society. Victories will be certain.

Another Great Mentor Coach, Bill Arnsparger, former assistant to Collier at UK, in his book Arnsparger’s Coaching Defensive Football said that Coach Blanton Collier taught him a famous, great quote

” you can accomplish a lot of things if you don’t care who gets the credit”.