Bottom 10 "teachable moments" from the PCA

The Positive Coaching Alliance has released its annual list of the Bottom and Top 10 Moments in Sports for 2007. (That's supposed to be a 'permanent link' to the PCA website; here's a link to a post I did in December 2006 about the 2006 Bottom 10).

This year, the PCA has come up with a pretty sweet gimmick: The Mitchell Report on steroid usage in baseball is at the top of both lists. The PCA lists it as no. 1 in the Top 10 because it provides "a chance for parents and coaches to capitalize on teachable moments with youth athletes and steer them away from cheating and drug use."

Teachable moments, eh? I kind of like the phrase.

So here's a teachable moment from the PCA's Bottom 10 List. Clocking in at No. 8, here's an illustration of what not to do when your son is pinned in a wrestling match:

I would go out on a limb here and suggest that rushing onto the playing field in any sport before play is halted is probably a bad idea. Just in case someone reading this thinks this applies just to wrestling and not to youth soccer. Or baseball.

This worried-looking fellow on the right is Mitch Cozad. He was, at one time, the backup punter on the University of Northern Colorado football team. He apparently decided that the way to move up on the depth chart was by maiming the starter. This link will take you to the story about his conviction and sentence for the crime. That's No. 3 on the PCA's Bottom 10 List.

Teachable moment here? Don't try and assassinate the kid who plays in front you.

That's pretty clear and unambiguous. Less clear and more ambiguous is this story from Lincoln, Nebraska about a soccer mom who threw her daughter out of the car along Interstate 80, allegedly because of her daughter's poor performance at a just-concluded soccer match.

That story rates No. 4 on the PCA's list. And I suppose one possible teachable moment here is that soccer is bad for you. But... c'mon... reading the story, one finds out that the girl in question was 15. What parent of a 15-year old hasn't been tempted to put that teenager out on the side of the road at some point? Even if they never played soccer?

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To cleanse yourself of the foregoing mean-spirited and cynical rendition, feel free to read the Top 10 list as well.