This article reminded me of a coach that I have worked with in the past. At the time, I was working as a part-time athletic trianer for a local high school. This meant that often, I would tell an athlete that I was going to hold him or her from practice until I had a chance to see them again in a day or two (depending on what day of the week it was.) Most of the coaches I worked with in this school had no problems with this since I also gave them a phone number to contact me if anything changed in the meantime (for better or for worse.) Unfortunately, I had one coach who would accept my opinion if I was telling the student athlete that he or she could continue to practice or play. However, if I chose to hold a kid out of participation, (or even allow them to participate with restrictions,) this coach would flatly tell me that the athlete needed to get a second opinion. This coach even so far as to tell one athlete that they needed a second doctor's opinion even when the first doctor agreed with my findings to the letter. Eventually, the parents became wise to this coach's games and were able to remove him from his position using this complaint along with several complaints.
The part that really stuns me about this as I look back now is that it should have been more obvious to me what the coach was doing and trying to take advantage of the fact that I was recently graduated from college and working in my first two years out of school. When I look back on that situation now, I find that I would have a much stronger reaction to a coach who consistently questioned my decisions when it went against his wishes.
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