Games and sports have numerous benefits to the athletes. They have social, physical and psychological benefits to the athletes. However, these same sports have inherent threat to the emotional and physical wellbeing of a child athlete. Most sports are competitive. Therefore, coaches put all their energies into ensuring that their teams emerge winners in various tournaments. The motivation is based on the rewards and prestige accorded to the coach and the team. Therefore, coaches use all means, including unorthodox ones, to ensure victory. Subsequently, this can lead to verbal, physical and emotional abuse of the student-athletes. Some of the coaches’ utterances and actions are interpreted as motivation to the athletes. However, they have far reaching effects to the athletes. They impact negatively on their physical, emotional and psychological health. Abuse is disguised as motivation. Maltreatment of the athletes is interpreted as motivation despite its effects on them. Most stakeholders including parents, fans, sporting organizations and even the coaches themselves are unware of this vice. The failure to point out its existence validates it. This should not be the case owing to the immense effect abusive coaching has on the trainees (Mountjoy, Rhind, Tiivas, & Leglise, 2015) .
Maltreatment by coaches is a common but unrecognized phenomenon in athletic. This abuse can be verbal, sexual, physical or emotional. It tends to have far reaching effects to student-athletes. These effects include chronic anxiety, reduced self-esteem and eating disorders. Since most students are young and vulnerable, they tend to take the abuse from their coaches as normal without realizing the far reaching effects it has on them. The effects of the abuse may manifest later as post-traumatic stress disorder. This happens when the student harbours a lot of pain secondary to a situation that happened in the past. This may manifest itself as persistent sadness, crying and outbursts that are not proportional to the situation at hand. Physical abuse can lead to further injury in the field as the athlete tries to please the coach. Moreover, low self-esteem predisposes a student-athlete to strained interpersonal relationships. The student feels worthless and will always seek validation from others. Such athletes tend to keep to themselves, and rarely share their pain with other people including their parents (Miller, 2017) .
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The effects of abuse are more pronounced in athletes who have had a previous history of abuse. These students are emotionally vulnerable and tend to lack the emotional resilience to handle situations. Some of those situations may be benign but can be overwhelming to a student who has a previous history of abuse. The basis for this vulnerability is psychological fragility. Such students are largely controlled by the preconscious mind which harbours the past abuses. Therefore, a student-athlete’s response to a situation is highly influenced by the past experience in the preconscious level. The underlying sadness and loss amplifies the response. The expression of the frustrations or disappointment of a student-athlete who has been physical/sexually/emotionally abused is of a higher magnitude compared to that of a student-athlete who has no such past history (Miller, 2017) .
Actions of coaches can either break or destroy their trainees. A feedback from a coach can build or destroy the athlete will power and emotional capacity. A negative and demeaning feedback from a coach to an athlete who has a past history of abuse triggers a situation of emotional distress. The student becomes hopeless and starts to feel worthless. Moreover, such an athlete also resigns to a situation of self-loathing and persistent shame. The athlete feels out of control of the circumstance and has impending feelings of doom and failure. In contrast with individuals who have not had past history of abuse, student athlete with a past history tend to have inappropriate guilt. They tend to take up greater responsibility of a situation than is reasonable. Some coaches tend to use this to instil guilt in such individuals. They fail to realize that doing so further depletes the emotional energy of these students (Zehntner, 2019) .
Athlete’s maltreatment takes various forms. These include physical, sexual and emotional. Sexual assault by adults and coaches meant to take care of athletes is mainly fueled by intimidation by these individuals (adults and coaches). Some experiences and confessions of some student athletes are disheartening. Kyle Stephens for example confesses that she was six years old when Dr. Nassar, a USA Gymnastic doctor, sexually abused her. This abuse continued until 12 years where he “could pleasure himself in front of her”. The doctor took advantage of Kyle’s vulnerability. This emotional abuse has far reaching effects in the general and athletic life of Kyle Stephens. Jessica Thomashow also confessed that the same doctor touched her most secret places when she was 12 years old. She is now 17 years. These are just few examples of how children athlete suffer sexually in the hands of their coaches and other adults (Salon, 2019) .
Coaches are also emotionally abuse student-athletes. This happens when a coach (who is a person in authority) attack’s a child’s self-esteem. The attack is mostly viewed in the sporting discipline as a form of discipline. Some coaches may not have the intention of harming the child. However, this is usually the consequence of such verbal attacks. It includes name calling such as “Hey, fatty”. More commonly among the coaches it entails threatening the athletes. The coach can say “If you do not play well today, forget being a member of this team forever”. This creates intense distress in a child. Some coaches even go further and insult the athletes by calling them names such as “stupid”, “useless”. Some criticize the performance of an athlete in front of the teammates. The effects of this is increased anxiety, self-loathing and reduced self-esteem. Physical abuse by the coaches is also common in sports. Some forms of maltreatment include slapping athletes, hitting them or even throwing items on them. Some athletes even pull ears of the students. This happens especially after a loss or following a dismal performance. A single athlete may also be punished for failing to perform as expected. An example of such punishment is increased number of field laps compared to the others (Zehntner, 2019) .
Most coaches believe that instilling fear to student athletes is the appropriate strategy in motivating them to work hard. They believe that intimidation always delivers good results. The rogue ones even go a step further and sexually abuse their trainees. This becomes emotionally draining for the young ones. They find it hard to share with their parents who believe mostly will not understand the perspective of the children. Most parents are of the school of thought that coaches being hard on their children is preparing them for the real life. This, to some extent, creates an enabling environment for the coaches to further the maltreatment. However, there is a thin line between mentorship and abuse. Positive pressure is important if it is motivated by compassion and empathy. Therefore, parents and coaches need to revisit their definitions of positive pressure and abusive coaching.
Better results in sports should never be the excuse of abusive coaching, nor should be “hardening of the students”. No excuse should be fronted by coaches to physically, emotionally and verbally abuse their trainees. Coaches are figures of authority. Their main roles should be to offer guidance to the athletes. There is also a need to have a way that students can report cases of abuse to the authorities. A guidance and counselling department should be set up in every sporting department to address issues of abuse. Parents on the other hand should be proactive in their parenting. This entails asking their athletic children questions regarding their athletic and coaching. A change in the training of coaches can be another way in which abusive coaching can be prevented. This entails have coaching education that puts emphasis on fun and skills acquisition as opposed to replicating bad coaching habits of older coaches (Zehntner, 2019) .
In conclusion, abusive coaching is rampant in athletics. Most often it goes unnoticed by the coaches and parents. It is majorly driven by the need to register good results and the need to test the response of athletes in times of pressure. Maltreatment can take various forms which include sexual, physical and emotional abuse. These abuses can lead to mental disorders such as depression, eating disorders and anxiety disorders. They also lead to low self-esteem. The athletes feel worthless and hopeless. These effects also tend to go unnoticed but have far reaching effects on the lives of the trainees. Therefore, no justification should be made regarding abusive coaching. Coaches should offer mentorship to the trainees and not inflict pain. Coaches should be trained properly and should desist from replicating abusive training techniques from the older coaches. Abusive coaching should be identified by all stakeholders and condemned with the strongest actions possible.
References
Miller, A. C. (2017, July 18). Mind, Body and Sport: The haunting legacy of abuse . Retrieved from NCCA: http://www.ncaa.org/sport-science-institute/mind-body-and-sport-haunting-legacy-abuse
Mountjoy, M., Rhind, D., Tiivas, A., & Leglise, M. (2015). Safeguarding the child athlete in sport: a review, a framework and recommendations for the IOC youth athlete development model. British Journal of Sports , 883-885.
Salon. (2019, September 14). "These girls became perfect prey": The women who ended Larry Nassar's abuse tell their stories . Retrieved from Salon: https://www.salon.com/2019/09/14/these-girls-became-perfect-prey-the-women-who-ended-larry-nassars-abuse-tell-their-stories/
Zehntner, C. (2019, February 25). Toughen up snowflake! Sports coaches can be emotionally abusive – here’s how to recognise it . Retrieved from The Conversation: http://theconversation.com/toughen-up-snowflake-sports-coaches-can-be-emotionally-abusive-heres-how-to-recognise-it-110267
