Doing it is one thing, proving it is another
Lawsuits in youth sports is an issue that understandably stirs fear and anxiety among administrators these days, but it is an important subject in which those in the industry need to be educated.
Just in the last couple years I have seen a string of lawsuits covering a variety of ages and sports. There was a youth-football program where two coaches—one for older kids, the other overseeing a younger team—decided to run a practice together. One of the younger players was injured while being tackled by an older, bigger boy, and the city, league administrator, and coaches from both teams were all named in a lawsuit.
A baseball coach in Florida was sued when a child on his team was hit in the head with a stray throw. The child had been standing outside the dugout and wasn’t wearing a helmet. In another incident, an 8-year-old child on a soccer field was playing with friends after a game in Louisiana and ran into the gate latch on an open fence, sustaining serious facial injuries. The coach and the administrator for the league were sued. And in Oregon, a city and the staff members of a parks and recreation department were named in a suit after a coach was convicted of sexual crimes; it was discovered he had abused children in the program years earlier.