Coaches Dealing with religious tolerance issues on the team

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Among my boys is one from a very devoutly religious family. Lately he's been getting a bit too.... shall we say, aggressive with his views. For example, when he notices other team members eyeballing one of the girls, or hears them say something about one of them being attractive, he'll make some comment about it. These comments range in severity from the irritatingly judgmental to the over-the-top offensive. (note: I'm using this merely as an example: this is not to say I would encourage any sort of disrespectful behavior towards the girls from the guys, but expecting 13-year-old boys not to notice they're surrounded by girls would be unrealistic, to say the least)

Yesterday, one of the other boys finally got fed up with it and told him off, and it all but came to blows between the two of them.

I am completely at a loss as to how to deal with this. Religion tends to be a very touchy subject on it's own; combine strongly contrasting religious beliefs with teenage testosterone in a high-adrenaline atmosphere and I can imagine some pretty nasty drama coming out of this.

Any ideas or suggestions?

 

[bogwoppit]

Very simple, no religion or politics in the gym. But the judgemental types will always be hard to control with or without religion as that is personality driven,not belief driven.

Judge not etc etc.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

I already have that rule, but it's hard to police it; it's very difficult to catch these sorts of comments before they're made, and with them being 13-year-old boys, both sides always want to get in the last word. Even if I shush them and tell them not to discuss politics and religion in the gym, the argument tends to quietly continue when they think I can't hear them.

What I'm looking for is a way to get them to respect each other so they can continue to work as a team, rather than silently hate each other. I just don't know if such a solution exists.

 

[marie83]

I would firstly speak to the parents and explain your policy - Although they may well have the same views as their son, they would hopefully be more mature and understand that you have to respect other people and not constantly make them feel judged. They might be able to explain this to him without you having to deal with it.

If this doesn't resolve it, I'd sit the boys down and have a chat about things, perhaps you could say they need to have mutual respect for each other and for you as the coach. You've set the rules and if they can't abide by them, there will be consequences - perhaps they will be suspended for one session or something else that they all think will be a suitable consequence. (If they help to set the rules they will be more inclined to abide by them!)

Good luck!
It is certainly a toughie - I've not had to deal with anything like this so far, but with other issues, I've never had to go further than just explaining the situation to the parents - they are usually pretty good at laying the law down for their child and all it takes is a quick 'I'm speaking to mum/dad at the end of the session' to get them back on track! Not sure how much of a threat that is for boys though!

 

[CoachTodd]

I was going to make some more suggestions along the lines of what Marie said all depending on the exact conversation that took place but I came up with an alternative.

Let the gym owner handle it. Let her know what is going on and let her decide what the gym's policy will be in this situation. This way we, as coaches, don't inadvertently come up set a precedent for something the owner doesn't like

 

[marie83]

I was going to make some more suggestions along the lines of what Marie said all depending on the exact conversation that took place but I came up with an alternative.

Let the gym owner handle it. Let her know what is going on and let her decide what the gym's policy will be in this situation. This way we, as coaches, don't inadvertently come up set a precedent for something the owner doesn't like

Oh yes, totally agree - I was just assuming that GT was the HC!

 

[I-Heart-Beam]

Any religious discussions were not allowed on our team, period. Any mention of it and you were out of the gym for a week.

 

[bookworm]

Any religious discussions were not allowed on our team, period. Any mention of it and you were out of the gym for a week.

that would work too...

 

[CreateMagic]

I definitely agree there should be a discussion with both the boys and the parents. At 13, the boys are old enough to be included in this type of discussion. Perhaps a meeting with the parents alone, and then with the boys and parents together. It may be useful to approach this as a general tolerance issue overall, discuss that everyone has different views on many different situations throughout life, and work it as a "life lesson" discussion, trying to help them deal with situations like this that may come up. I know that those kind of lessons are not generally your job, they should be taught by parents, but you may have more contact with these kids per week than their parents do--and they are probably more likely to listen to you anyway!

I may just be rambling a bit here, and I understand that this would be difficult to approach and implement. Just throwing ideas out there.

Any religious discussions were not allowed on our team, period. Any mention of it and you were out of the gym for a week.

I'm not sure I like this policy particularly. Religious discussions are not a bad thing, and banning all talk of religion tends to get people's backs up and also makes it more interesting to talk about . Its the intolerance of others and their beliefs that should be banned.

 

[coachmolly]

I definitely agree there should be a discussion with both the boys and the parents. At 13, the boys are old enough to be included in this type of discussion. Perhaps a meeting with the parents alone, and then with the boys and parents together. It may be useful to approach this as a general tolerance issue overall, discuss that everyone has different views on many different situations throughout life, and work it as a "life lesson" discussion, trying to help them deal with situations like this that may come up. I know that those kind of lessons are not generally your job, they should be taught by parents, but you may have more contact with these kids per week than their parents do--and they are probably more likely to listen to you anyway!

I may just be rambling a bit here, and I understand that this would be difficult to approach and implement. Just throwing ideas out there.



I'm not sure I like this policy particularly. Religious discussions are not a bad thing, and banning all talk of religion tends to get people's backs up and also makes it more interesting to talk about . Its the intolerance of others and their beliefs that should be banned.

I agree with using this time as an opportunity to teach them some life lessons, just let the parents know ahead of time. Religion is a sticky subject and banning talk of it altogether might give especially religious families a bad taste in their mouth about the program. I think it's definitely the tolerance issues that need to be addressed.
Fortunately I live in an area where the vast majority of girls I coach are all the same religion, makes things much easier.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

I think I'm going to wait and see how things play out tomorrow, and take it from there.

Thanks for the advice, all!

 

[CreateMagic]

Completely off topic, GT... I just noticed you're from Apex. I was just down in NC for Thanksgiving, first visiting my brother in Greensboro, then friends in Fuquay-Varina. Nice area!

 

[BlairBob]

What I'm looking for is a way to get them to respect each other so they can continue to work as a team, rather than silently hate each other. I just don't know if such a solution exists.

Good luck on that. In my experience, a good throw down sometimes settles this but it's what I would allow in gym. We are dealing with boys here, not girls.

I prefer to be a tyrannical fascist in this regard. There is no democracy, there is no PC nonsense, being the coach is being the alpha. In another day and time, I'd just let them settle it but nowadays that would be a pain in my butt that I'd then have to deal with and I'm not in the mood to pay anyone's medical bills.

My dad always told me in the workplace be careful of three things: politics, religion, and sex/personal stuff. Yeah, that's basically everything.

I would simply reinforce they need to follow the rules or else. It could go the route of many, many, many burpees or simply they go to the lockers or go home followed by a sit-down with the parents. This could be either with the Head Team Coach or owners and myself or any combination.

If they don't listen, I tell them to get off the floor. If they don't, well, it generally never gets to that point. Generally.

 

[I-Heart-Beam]

I'm not sure I like this policy particularly. Religious discussions are not a bad thing, and banning all talk of religion tends to get people's backs up and also makes it more interesting to talk about . Its the intolerance of others and their beliefs that should be banned.

I can see where you're coming from. It's just religion here is quite a tricky issue for want of a better word. Sectarianism is a huge problem, and the gym is no place for politics, religion or moral debate IMO.

 

[Valentin]

haha i am sorry but i find it kinda funny. That they boys felt so strong about their stance that they actually had a punch-up..
I think the key to solving this is how you handled it immediately following it happening? What did you do?

I have a group of young boys, who are really wild at time, and one in particular is really sensitive at times. One time he got really angry and pushed/ or tried to punch another of the boys..(funny enough before he did it you could see how he was struggling with the concept..really interesting in way). The way i delt with it personally is that i pulled him aside had a strong chat to him about if he does that again he is out, and told him to apologize. He did and everything went back to normal haha.. Boys will be boys, and sometimes as it was said before a punch-up can turn them into friends.

I think you are right to see how it plays out because if this is a first then it could very well be a last, if it starts to become a common problem then it is something to really address more formally. It is not like this was bullying or anything like that.

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

It didn't actually come to blows; it just seemed briefly like it was headed in that direction. One of the boys simply walked away before it got there.

 

[BlairBob]

the gym is no place for politics, religion or moral debate

Bingo.

I'm glad I don't have that boy in my group. He wouldn't like me much when I'm scoping out the adult cheerleaders that rent out our floor. I've had older boys checking out the girls before and it's generally been something we have all laughed at as a group so long as it wasn't disrespectful (which generally invokes my wrath). Personally, so long as it's not out of line I would not tell the other boys they have to be PC.

Back in the day, sometimes I got to liking a person a lot more after a fight. It wasn't uncommon to get along better with my friends after some heated moments if we just threw down and got it out of our system.

One of my new lil guys tends to say thing like "crap!" though there was a JC the other day. I'm guessing he's not religious and he is a chatty lil motormouth. I could start some sort of cuss bank like a penny or nickel or 30 pushups each time. I'm trying to keep it down as I know one of the boys is catholic though that boy doesn't really care.

 

[nevertooold]

For example, when he notices other team members eyeballing one of the girls, or hears them say something about one of them being attractive, he'll make some comment about it. These comments range in severity from the irritatingly judgmental to the over-the-top offensive.

Is he making nasty comments about the boy who was eyeballing the girls, or nasty comments about the girls?

 

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Is he making nasty comments about the boy who was eyeballing the girls, or nasty comments about the girls?

To the boys who were eyeballing the girls.

Both the boys in question were at practice yesterday, and the battle seems to have blown over.

 

[BlairBob]

Hmm, my religious boy, the only one who is religious (catholic) in my group just discovered how awesome girl's curves are apparently on Friday night.

There was quite a bit of laughter by myself and the other boys and I'm just glad the girls were out of hearing range. All the boys other than he were suffering from sore face muscles.