News BriefsRepeal is sign of timesBy David Pickle > NCAA Champion Magazine

News Briefs
Repeal is sign of times
By David Pickle

Until a few weeks ago, University of Virginia events were missing one trapping of modern athletics competition: homemade signs. But the university October 3 retreated on a late-summer e-mail to students that banned signs inside athletics facilities.

Virginia officials said sportsmanship was the goal of the no-sign policy, but that it had instead become a campus distraction at a time when student-athletes needed fan support.

The original policy decision appeared to relate to a 2007 incident in which a student was threatened with ejection from a football game for displaying a sign that read “Fire Groh.” Al Groh is the Cavaliers’ football coach.

At the time of the policy's implementation, the Charlottesville Daily Progress quoted a Virginia legal expert who said that the new policy, almost ironically, raises fewer free-speech questions than the old one, which had banned only derogatory or profane language.

“The key factor in determining the constitutionality of a restriction on speech in a public place is whether it is directed at what is being said,” said Josh Wheeler of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Expression. “In other words, does the restriction apply to all speech, and not just the speech you don’t like?”

Tebow to Playboy: No thanks

Florida athletics officials and reigning Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow ran a misdirection play this summer when they chose not to nominate Tebow for the Playboy magazine preseason All-America team.

An article in the St. Petersburg Times said that assistant sports information director Zack Higbee recommended against nominating Tebow for the recognition and that Tebow endorsed the decision. Tebow is a devout Christian who is involved in missionary work.

The episode was similar to a 1996 incident in which Gators quarterback Danny Wuerffel declined the same honor, also because of his religious convictions.

Title IX-like law for disabled?

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Representatives from the Women’s Sports Foundation have recommended creation of a law for the disabled that would parallel the purpose of Title IX, which prohibits discrimination against women in education.

Advocates cited a new Maryland law, the Fitness and Athletics Equity for Students with Disabilities Act, that requires equal access to athletics programs and physical education classes for students with physical disabilities. “We need a law like Maryland’s on the national level,” Aimee Mullins, president of the Women’s Sports Foundation and a one-time Paralympics record-holder, said in a USA Today article.

Terri Lakowski, the Women’s Sports Foundation’s public policy director, encouraged a Government Accounting Office study to determine the state of scholastic opportunities for disabled individuals.

States getting smart about coaching education

A recently released report shows widespread acceptance of the need for coaching education at the youth level.

The National Coaching Report, the only comprehensive report addressing both youth and interscholastic sport coaching education requirements in the United States, showed that 84 percent of all states have a coaching education requirement.

The most commonly identified content areas for coaching education are fundamentals of coaching, first aid, CPR training and sport rules training.

“Parents across the country send their children to practices and events with the expectation that adult supervision will bring positive sport outcomes, maximal learning and skill development,” said Fran Cleland of West Chester University of Pennsylvania, president of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education. “Yet horror stories persist about dramatic increases in winning-obsessed parents, sports injuries, over-specialization of young athletes and children quitting sports because they simply aren’t fun anymore.”

A free copy of the report is available online at www.naspeinfo.org/coachingreport.