I think it should be mandatory that all coaches & DOC get drug tested twice a year.
- Thread starter sandshark
- Start date
MakeAPlay
DA
Good point and a good way to distract from the post. Lets talk about youth soccer here and save the other BS for around your fire pit buddy. You must be a coach
Your post clearly is not serious or you just have some ax to grind. You can't honestly think that constant drug testing will make any difference. If it will then lets test everyone. Otherwise when you come up with some silly topic to rail against you should expect people to be silly about it and to not take it seriously. JMHO.
Where to begin .....
sandshark
SILVER ELITE
I believe that if the coaches are involved in our children's every day life they should be tested, I also think the clubs would jump at the opportunity to protect our children and show how proactive they are when it comes the children's safety.
Drug Testing companies only charge $40.00 for the collection, lab fees, and results.
Great Idea and Whilst on your crusade, how about we mandate all parents too...After all, there's way more Parents than Coaches and why would anyone "NOT want this for the sake of the children"
Few points: 1) note there's a difference between licensing and what the requirements are for a coach to be certified by a particular club. The requirements for certificate vary slightly from league to league but for the most part are minimal and set by the individual clubs themselves. 2) as to licensing, the requirements are utterly laughable. To get the "E" license you just basically need to do an online course and take in the in person workshop/test (where pretty much everybody passes). The lack of relevant material which is missing is truly shocking. Having come out of the training, I'm not even sure there is a procedure out there whereby your license can be suspended/terminated or even if there's a code of conduct. It would be entirely possible for a monkey to hold the E license. 3) if you are going to do something first, why drug tests....it would seem criminal background checks would be more relevant, 4) AYSO is already struggling to get parents to volunteer to coach....are you going to include them in the drug test requirement....if not what's different about AYSO (the kids tend to be even younger since the clubs typically don't start til U8/9 at the earliest)?
sandshark
SILVER ELITE
I'm sorry that should say "some" Drug Testing Companies only charge $40.00 for the collection, lab fee's and results. The clubs can step up and pay this fee or they can pass it on the the coach as a fee.
I don't see how any parent would be against having their child's coach tested for drug use! Is this really even a thought.. WTH?
I don't see how any parent would be against having their child's coach tested for drug use! Is this really even a thought.. WTH?
sandshark
SILVER ELITE
Having a bad coach or a coach with a low level soccer IQ is not even in the same realm as a coach that is using drugs around our children! And again if AYSO is having a hard time getting volunteers to coach then what exactly are we saying here?? "Oh man don't bring drug testing into it - then we will never get a volunteer if they are forced to be clean and sober" WTH ha ha this is insane that 100% (except for some coaches and DOC's) of everyone is not demanding this by now! And yes they do a "live scan" to get a license for most youth sports but that only checks finger prints for a back ground criminal history.
Is this really something anyone could argue over when it comes to our children?!
outside!
DA
Which drugs? I remember hiring into a new company. All the new hires were in a meeting when they passed around a list of drugs they tested for. It was all I could do to keep from asking "Does this mean I can do all the LSD and Mushrooms I want since they are not on the list?" Not all drugs can be tested for. Two of the most dangerous are legal. Many drug tests give false positives. If you are really concerned about drug use, you should never eat out.
Chesterton's Fence. AYSO has coaches dealing with some of the littlest children (as young as 5) as well as kids with disabilities (through the VIP program)...clearly the most vulnerable of the children. AYSO does take some steps to screen parent volunteers, has a mandatory training program, and has rules in place such as that the coaches aren't allowed to be alone with the kids (another parent is supposed to be there, even though sometimes it does happen that the coach gets left alone with a handful of kids because parents are late picking up or whatever). AYSO has stopped short of finger printing parent volunteers, drug testing them, or running all but the most perfunctory criminal background checks (such as against the SO lists). Why? Because it would act as a deterrent, even against people who do nothing wrong, from having them sign up. Plus, people would miss the deadlines, get false positives, get stuck in appeals/administrative procedures leaving teams potentially in the lurch. And the cost isn't just the lab fee and results....it's the administrative expense in time and money of having to set up a review panel plus an appeals process plus the litigation once it gets appealed to a court of law. Then there's the free rider problem....the first organization that does it is going to potentially lose a bunch of qualified people because they don't want to deal with it...so there's an incentive against being the first organization out there....so it would be something that would have to be imposed from the top down.
I don't care. Coaches don't operate heavy equipment, so your "safety" concerns make me chuckle. I much prefer my kid's coach not be a drinker, but I'm betting alcohol does not fall on your list of drugs.
Coocoo.
Well, your initial premise was that drug testing should be a condition to the license. As I pointed out, that's laughable considering that a monkey could walk on a get one. It's different than being certified with a league or with an organization (like AYSO, or a particular soccer club). If you are going to make that change, that's where you have to make it, with the certification (i.e. getting carded) (and not the license), unless you want to rework the entire licensing system (which BTW, they should probably do anyways considering it's that much of a joke).
And yes, it does act as a deterrent, because you are sweeping up people with no problems along with people that have them. And then there's the ambiguous middle ground such as people who will dispute the findings, and the litigation which follows. So it's a balancing act the organization needs to manage. How do they manage it? As I've pointed out, AYSO manages it with rules in effect that you can't leave children alone...the coaches behavior can therefore be monitored by the parents (or not, it's their choice)...and if there's complaints (such as a coach obviously coming in high to a game or practice) AYSO has corrective procedures in effect to remove the coach. It's a cost benefit balance, and if anything, AYSO has done a better job than club soccer, even though admittedly (as you see from all the SO stories in the news) it's one that sometimes fails.