Blog 4: What is the nature of the problem of abuse in sports?

My inquiry question: How can the different types of abuse in sports be diminished?

What is the nature of the problem?

Protection of their image

What is an institutions image and why is it so important? An institutions image is a set of an individual’s perceptions about the institution. (8) An educational institution has a multifaceted image that includes academic, social, political, and perhaps stylistic dimensions. (8) An institutions image is essentially for their reputation and to bring more people in, whether that includes more students, athletes or employees. Unfortunately when it comes to abuse allegations for schools and institutions they rather preserve their image than handle the situtation appropriately. (9) Students in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia all say their schools mishandled serious complaints against coaches in recent years. (9) However it is commonly thought that these institutions prefer keeping a good reputation than the well-being and safety of these athletes, and there have been no known changes to the handling of the situations. (9) Unfortunately, this is a common theme we often see with sport abuse cases. However, over the years there is always time to change and improve as more athletes begin to speak out agaisnt the school’s and coaches. (10)

Athletes safety

As a society we all give too much trust to coaches despite the statistics. 17% of Canadian athletes claim that they have suffered to the hands of their coach as their abuser. (2) The influence of a coach is never neutral, and a coach’s affirming or demeaning words can stick with a person the rest of their life! (3) So it bring the question up of shouldn’t we be training these people? (3) Therefore, coaches need more education about athlete safety. Luckily, nowadays we have more programs in Canada to resolve this problem. CAC has options for a safe sport training program to educate both coaches and athletes about safety during sports. The program specializes in teaching the knowledge and skills to create healthy and safe environments by recognizing, addressing and preventing maltreatment in sport. (4) Additionally it has two main goals to teach being: to understand that everyone has a role to play in keeping sport safe, how the misuse of power leads to maltreatment, and the principles of the Universal Code of Conduct. (4) And finally, to understand the various types of maltreatment, the conditions that enable them, and how to recognize signs that they may be happening. (4) With more resources coming to light we can expect a brighter future for the safety of athletes regarding their own knowledge and their coaches education to keep them safe.

The code of silence

Sports has an unwritten “no snitching” rule, but it comes at a price. (1) The code of silence is an unfortunate way athletes are pressured to stay silent after facing abuse.During investigations of many abuse situations, a “code of silence” has found to exist when it came to reporting misconduct. (6) The code of silence is defined as a condition in effect when a person opts to withhold what is believed to be vital or important information voluntarily or involuntarily”. (1) The code of silence is prevelant in sports environments mostly due to fear. You may be questionning what athletes could be afraid of? The reasons for this may include a fear of punishment, not being believed, being gossiped about, being excluded from sport, jeopardising social positions and privileges, and uncertainty associated with the reporting process, and many other issues. (5) Therefore, many athletes are too afraid to break the code of silence and instead decide to abide by the code. Additionally when athletes do break the code of silence the situation drags on for years. This is due to the situation not getting resolved until someone files a lawsuit or a family succeeds in revealing criminal behavior is that we’ve become numb to this behavior in sports. (3) As the code of silence becomes more recognized we are starting to see a change. For example, Hockey Canada has released an action plan to shatter the code of silence and eliminate toxic behaviour in and around Canada’s game. (7)

Sources:

1. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/04/what-does-it-take-to-break-the-athletes-code-of-silence/256183/
2. https://globalnews.ca/news/5250320/canadian-athletes-psychological-abuse-signs/
3. https://playerdevelopmentproject.com/why-is-abusive-coaching-tolerated-in-sports/
4. https://coach.ca/safe-sport-training
5. https://olympics.com/athlete365/integrity/hearing-and-respecting-the-athletes-voice/
6. https://globalnews.ca/news/8531904/chl-panel-code-of-silence-report/
7. https://www.gtaweekly.ca/hockey-canada-releases-action-plan-to-shatter-the-code-of-silence-and-eliminate-toxic-behaviour-in-and-around-canadas-game/
8. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00991860
9. https://www.sportsnet.ca/usports/universities-not-protecting-athletes-abusive-coaches-students/
10. https://theconversation.com/nobody-said-anything-because-they-feared-being-benched-how-abuse-is-baked-into-american-sports-192048