Counter_Intelligent: To play devil's advocate: I'm sure there is a limit to how far you can use grueling exercise as a punishment.

Yep, there's always a few stories each year of a coach who goes a bit past the limit.

As someone who ran many laps in school, I approve this message.

/I sound fat

ManateeGag: we are raising a nation of pussies.

This times a trillion

ZAZ: To use conditioning as punishment is "almost vindictive in nature."

Punishment is vindictive by definition.

I think the idea is not to associate athletic conditioning with punishment. Like you don't punish a kid by making him read.

/difference - high school students are not six years old

Approves of extra laps.

YOU WILL RUN LAPS UNTIL YOU PUKE! THEN AFTER YOU PUKE YOU'LL RUN UNTIL YOU POOP YOUR PANTS.

Well then, to be fair to everyone just and not single any one person out have the entire class\team do those "Extra" laps as well...

Then let them fix any team "Issues" in the locker room amongst themselves later on.

Even more effective than making the kid being punished run laps - make the entire team run laps because of the one disobedient kid, and remind the team over and over who is responsible while they're running. Peer pressure is the most effective way to get results with teenagers.

Mr. Coffee Nerves: We got 10, maybe 15 years of football left before the concussion issue leads to insurance rates simply pricing the sport out of business. Stories like this simply accelerate its end.



/Sad but probably true!!

granolasteak: My kids get pushups if they get out of line...whether we're in the store or at home. It gives them time to cool off and me time to breathe so we can move along without argument.

I've had comments, mostly from young parents, that it is damaging to my kids' self-esteem. I ignore these people. Mostly I get rave reviews from the older folks. And I have pretty well-behaved kids.

What, honestly, are teachers supposed to do with these kids who are out of line? Ask them to pretty please not do that? At some point it's more damaging to any child NOT to discipline them, and this certainly sounds like that point.

Provides additional exercise to the kids, and works as a form of discipline.

And you've run into people who have a problem with this?

Sadly, I'm not surprised.

What if you do lousy at a meet and coach makes the team run a pair of ladders the next day? Is that punishment or conditioning? Does it all depend on how he frames it?

More to the story than what is in the Rag's article. He went beyond just having the kid do extra conditioning and should be fired, and banned from coaching if all of the allegations are true. Linky to complete document on the investigation. http://localtvwhotv.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/campero-v-mihalovich-r edacted.pdf

but then again im from texas and next to jebus there is football. also we had to run everyone has to run. whats next excessive running in the military.

/gassers FTW!!!
//yes the stadium benches were covered in puke afterwards.

Our poor snowflakes are melting...

Chug this rootbeer as punishment.

Krieghund: I don't understand why a high school coach would need to discipline a kid. If the kid wants to do the work, let him play. If he doesn't, don't let him.

Stop being reasonable!

Even though studies uniformly say that coaches yelling at kids or punishing them with physical discipline is counterproductive at best, we need to continue to bully children because otherwise people might think we're gay or something.

I was very pleased yesterday seeing the gymnastics program my daughter is in provide some "discipline" with the program. The coach was getting after the girls some when they were talking or goofing off and made them run laps and stuff. It was kinda refreshing to see...especially with girls sports because its all foreign to me because I only grew up playing baseball, football, and other "boy" sports.

and guess what.....all the girls told the coaches bye, hugged them and all the things you would do towards a person you like. Most kids and parents understand that coaches should provide some discipline and call the kids out when they aren't doing what they are supposed to.

Detention, laps, extra homework - anything like that would be fine with me.

Giving another adult permission to hit my kid is not something I could ever see myself doing in a million years. I can hardly imagine how humiliating it must be for a child to be beaten in front of his or her peers. It's abuse, and the people who think it's ok are perpetuating the cycle of abuse. School should be a safe place where children aren't potential prey for adults to take their frustrations out on.

oh but spanking "works" you say? Great if that's the standard let's do all sorts of horrible damaging things to people in order to get them to do what we want. If you can spank a kid and get him to sit still for the next five minutes it worked, right? And you've taught him that violence is how you control people weaker than you.

/never spanked
//turned out fine

I don't think there's a problem with running laps as a form of discipline as long as it's not over done. If you want to make a point about minor misbehavior, one lap is as good as 10. That way, the kid knows you're in charge, and it's unlikely to cause any harm. For more severe stuff, suspension from play or expulsion from the team seems more appropriate. I suspect some coaches would rather not go there, however, if it means kicking the star player off the team, but sport participation is a privilege and should be treated as such.

Running laps was supposed to be "win-win". The condition of the runner improved and that had a positive effect on everybody. It also gave the runner time alone to either cool down or contemplate a bad decision or both.

If it was a team issue causing the laps, then the preceding times team.

You see that armory? Run around it! Bronski, keep pace!

/Anytime you think I'm being too rough, anytime you think I'm being too tough, anytime you miss your mommy, QUIT! You sign your 1248, you get your gear, and you take a stroll down washout lane. Do you get me?

Back in the mid-eighties, our varsity soccer coach used to make players do a 1 lap sprint to the schools East wall during practice whenever an attempted shot sailed high over the crossbar.

Needless to say, we rarely scored during games with any shot above the waist.

You're all worthless and weak!

Now drop and please accept my apology for that inappropriate outburst.

You can't make someone run. The person decides to run to appease the person making the demand to maintain the social construct that one person can control another. In truth, the person asking the other to run is the one who is out of control: they want something, but they aren't in control of whether what they want happens or not.

The one who runs is voluntarily containing the other's psychological state. The only true control is something like sitting on another person (assuming you're heavy enough to restrict the other's movement). Everything else is agreement. It would be as if an angry, rude customer comes into your store and demands a cake 50% off and you contain that person's emotions, don't create a reflector of their emotions but rather absorb them, and give them the cake at 50% off.

That's what the children are doing. They're giving into the anger of adults. And that's how punishment has traditionally worked throughout history. Children contain adults' anger to make the world make sense for both them and the adults. The punishment is not the running. The punishment is not standing up for yourself, not reflecting the emotions of a person who is out of order. It's a voluntary punishment. And of course, there's the practical side: not voluntarily agreeing would lead to greater social problems. So, there's a sense of resignation. It's forcing children to not only contain the adult's emotions but their own. They have to sublimate and control their emotions for the long-term good of their lives. They can't blow up. Adults in their lives can.

It's bad pedagogy. And it's shaming when children should be forming a sense of autonomy and initiative. It's good pedagogy if you want bitter but resigned slaves. But not if you want happy children who become happy adults.

/No, I am not a troll.

Push-ups are now the primary form of correction for my 9 year old. he has a couple bad habits we're trying to break him of, and getting caught doing one of them he gets told to drop and give us 10.

He's either going to learn to stop or have arms like Schwarzenegger in his prime.

I didn't play a lot of (i.e., no) organized sports, so I don't understand why coaches punish kids for, say, missing free throws. To me, that just smacks of making a kid wear a dunce's cap for scoring low on a test. I can see consequences for not trying one's best, but for trying and failing? That just seems dickish and counter-productive.

Well you can't bench them, in high school they can sue for jeopardizing a college scholarship, in college, they can sue for jeopardizing their chances at being drafted.

The bottom line is this is common farking sense.

Running laps, pushups, etc. in and of themselves are a good discipline techinique. It's when coaches take it to an extreme that problems start. Then everybody goes overboard and goes to the opposite extreme and make sweeping changes instead of just rectifying a specific situation. If people just used some basic common sense it would make so many things so much easier.

/know it's a pipe dream though

TomD9938: Back in the mid-eighties, our varsity soccer coach used to make players do a 1 lap sprint to the schools East wall during practice whenever an attempted shot sailed high over the crossbar.

Needless to say, we rarely scored during games with any shot above the waist.

In other words, the coach discouraged you from trying to make those top corner shots--difficult to make, but even more difficult to save. See, I don't get that.