By Allie Campbell
Calendar Editor
In light of the recent scandal involving the Costa baseball team, many have called for a uniform sports discipline policy. Though legally the school administration cannot formally discipline a student for his or her actions at non-school related locations, individual organizations like sports teams may discipline students.
Therefore, Costa’s Athletics Department must establish some broad uniform rules regarding discipline. Coaches of individual teams should establish and distribute their own specific policies for every team at the start of each season.
Participating on a sports team is a privilege and a choice for students; therefore if an athlete does not agree with a coach’s rules and punishments, he or she should not be on the team.
However, having one general policy to cover all sports is not feasible. If such a policy were created, the broad nature might create loopholes and exceptions.
Each sport is different and the relationships between coach and athlete vary, so a one-size-fits-all policy wouldn’t work very well in reality. For example, policies in separate sports may vary with regards to offseason practices. Therefore, allowing coaches to adopt their own specific policies is much more practical.
Currently, many Costa athletic teams such as girls soccer and boys volleyball already outline and distribute their policies to student athletes at the beginning of the season. Though these policies cannot cover all situations that occur, they can establish a coach’s philosophy and detail various rules and consequences.
This strategy has worked for other athletics teams like the Saugus girls cross country team, which is the five-time defending Division II state champion. Saugus has an ethics policy created through collaboration between coaches and athletes.
Such policies clearly outline the rules and punishments for the team, including behavior that occurs outside of school-sanctioned events.
This unified effort, which may serve as an example for Costa athletics, ensures a clear understanding of the rules and encourages athletes to push teammates to follow rules for the benefit of the team. However, it is important that while students can submit ideas, the coach still has the final say regarding discipline.
In addition to a team’s individual set of rules, coaches should meet under the athletic director to establish a few uniform rules to solidify Costa’s stance on athletic ethics. For example, the consequences for getting arrested should have predetermined punishments.
With a set of collective rules built in to individual policies, Costa’s athletic teams could create a better guideline for disciplining student athletes. These actions can provide consistency for students and, hopefully, eliminate future controversies.
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