How Bullying and “Old School” Coaching In Sports Can Alter Your Child’s Brain
How it started
How Bullying and “Old School” Coaching In Sports Can Alter Your Child’s Brain. Our sixteen-year-old son, Montgomery, is playing an intense game of basketball at his high school. My husband and I are sitting in the stands with other parents and students watching. Abruptly, one of the two coaches – in an apparent fury – pulls Montgomery off the court. He hasn’t made an error, but we can’t hear what the enraged coach is saying to him across the court. Montgomery turns away from him and starts towards the bench when the coach yells so loudly that now his words are crystal clear: “DON’T WALK AWAY FROM ME WHEN I’M FUCKING TALKING TO YOU.” Montgomery turns back, sits by the coach for several minutes, and then makes his way, dejected, to the end of the bench.
Don’t say anything, or the season is ruined for me
When we were home after the game, we told Montgomery how shocked we were. How wrong it was. He told us flat out, “Don’t say anything or the season is ruined for me.” We knew there was something wrong but couldn’t articulate it. Couldn’t put our finger on it exactly. Another of the top players – singled out like our son in a local publication to be the talented player to watch – sat on the bench most games for the whole game. His mom had complained to the administration about beer cans all over the coaches’ hotel room and in the bathtub when they were traveling. The coaches retaliated by benching him. Our son wanted to play college, and according to his coaches and everyone who saw him play, he had the skillset and work ethic to do it. We didn’t want to jeopardize his chances. We did not speak up; I am ashamed to report.
One did the yelling while the other watched
It would be a few months later that the whole situation blew up. We learned from other players – asked to give testimonies about the abuse – that Montgomery was a specific target behind closed doors for this kind of yelling in the face. But worse. The two coaches would halt the practice. The one coach did the yelling, while the other watched, and pointed to the floor in front of him. Montgomery would have to stand before him, towering over him, while the coach yelled up into his face: “Do you even like basketball? You’re the best player out there, and you aren’t trying! Do you even deserve to play?” When Montgomery would start to back away from what one of the boys said was “vicious,” the coach would grab him by the jersey or arm and hold him in for more. One of the players said they wanted to stop it, but they couldn’t because the coach “was a teacher.” How many times did this happen? Hundreds of times.
I was a teacher at the school
I, too, was a teacher at this school, and these coaches were my colleagues. The Headmaster told my husband and me that it wasn’t a big deal, just “old-school coaching.” It was that moment that sparked the academic in me. I have a PhD in Comparative Literature and had two books by that point published by American and Canadian university presses. I was trained to put research ahead of opinion. As soon as I was encouraged to treat the verbal and physical assaults as not a big deal, I felt the compulsion to read the research.
It ruins performance and harmful to the target’s health
I found that sports psychology, psychiatry, and medicine all documented this kind of treatment as not only counterproductive, likely to ruin performance in the long run, but also as very harmful to the target’s health and mental health. And then I hit the neuroscience and learned that this kind of bullying does damage to brain architecture. Yelling alone, let alone humiliation, harms the brain. It leaves neurological scars that are visible on brain scans. It does harm to the body’s internal organs: heart, gut, blood. The brain research goes back at least 20 years. It’s extensive, peer-reviewed, and replicated.
My Daughter Quit Sports, and This Is What I Want Youth Sports Parents To Know
The goal, ‘not let them break me’
While I was researching, I heard directly from targets about the homophobic slurs regularly thrown at them: “fucking pussies” along with other put-downs such as “fucking retards.” We learned from our son that his only goal was “not to let them break me.” He was anguished seeing the harm done to the other players, but trapped because these coaches, this team, was his only way to get onto a college team. Other boys reported that they were anxious about losing playing time, and so looked the other way.
It’s a well-honed system of abuse
I have been studying abuse in sports and beyond for over ten years now and know that this is a classic abuse dynamic constructed on humiliation, fear, and favoritism. It’s not that different from the one seen among children in school. There are the ones bullying, the ones targeted, the fearful bystanders, and the beneficiaries. On a sports team, the beneficiaries are given privileges such as not being humiliated, not being yelled at, and not being ignored. They are given feedback and playing time and put into positions they may not merit. Why? They are the key defenders when abuse reports are issued by targets. They confuse those investigating and work to discredit those who speak up about abuse. It’s a well-honed system, and it’s textbook.
This treatment is harmful to the brain
Unfortunately, this kind of treatment is extremely harmful to the brains of all involved. Those who bully and abuse are eroding their empathy and emotional brain circuits. They start to be beholden to this kind of destructive behavior even when it leads to a lack of performance, as was the case with Montgomery’s coaches. But the myth prevailed that it was just “old school coaching” from an era when athletes were tough and not the snowflakes they are today.
One of the best ways to debunk a myth is with science
In my work now, since the publication of my book in 2022, The Bullied Brain: Heal Your Scars and Restore Your Health, I write a regular “Bullied Brain” series for Psychology Today on how yelling can do brain damage, how abuse can dismantle brain architecture, and on ways to recover.
There is good news
What’s empowering and inspiring about the neuroscience is that our brains are innately wired to repair and recover when we follow evidence-based practices. Our youth mental health crisis will begin to repair as soon as we put time into brain-fitness and encourage our children to work out in the brain-gym as much as they do at improving at their sport. All of us parents and coaches can also – until our final day on the planet – harness our neuroplasticity to make our brains as healthy, high-performing, and strong as we want. We can change negative brain behaviors and replace them with positive ones. All it takes is commitment and time.
He did not let them break him
Montgomery refused to play for those abusive coaches. He prioritized his health. He did not let them break him. He gave up his passion for the sport, which, honestly, was incredibly hard on him. A university counselor asked him what he had learned in his final years of high school, and he replied, “I learned that I have courage.”
