A Colorado cheerleading coach seen in a viral video forcing a girl into an extended split as she screamed in agony was fired from a previous job for the same thing.
The 13-year-old cheerleader was shown crying and begging her coach, Ozell Williams, to stop as he pushed her to the ground during an exercise at a camp in June, reported KUSA-TV.
The teen, Ally Wakefield, told the TV station she tore a ligament in the exercise, known as “breaking,” and her parents sent video of the incident to school administrators shortly after the cheerleading camp began.
Williams, who oversaw the camp, was suspended Wednesday by East High School in Denver, Colorado.
KUSA also reported that Williams had been fired from his paid consulting job last year after parents at Boulder High School complained about the forced splits.
There is a video of this but I refuse to post it here because it is too disturbing. (If you want to see it just click the Raw Story link.)
I spent twenty years training in martial arts, and was also a gymnast as well as a coach, but only once did I ever see this barbaric training method.
It was in a dojo in Anchorage, and the sensei literally stood on my legs, which were in the split position, while giving instruction to the other students.
Fortunately for me I could already do the splits to there was no injury, just some mild foot shaped bruising on my thighs. (That guy really hated me.)
As a coach myself I NEVER engaged in this type of forced stretching because I knew it to be harmful, which is something that is actually touched upon during your training to be a coach.
Sports are fun, and they should be taught with the idea of keeping them fun.
(Yes I know I have diverged from the usual topics covered here on IM, but damn this thing really bothered me. Don't worry back to politics after this. )
That hurts my heart too.
ReplyDeleteAnd you were right to post something about it.
I've torn that ligament... it takes a very long time to heal and it is never the same. This asshole should be sued to bankruptcy and black balled forever.
ReplyDeleteYou must start this at a very young age. At certain public schools, gymnastics was/is a requirement.
ReplyDeleteAmerican children's "sports" are just so messed up. Little girls put in cheerleading at 3 years old, which means further add-on classes of acrobatics, tumbling, dance, and gymnastics. Children of both sexes put in t-ball at 3 so that they're not "aged out" of baseball at 7. Parents putting their kids on traveling teams year-round at 6.
ReplyDeleteI so agree! My grandkids were in Texas and if you didn't start baseball (year round) at 4, you would never make one of the 'elite' teams. Saw my granddaughter at gymnastics classes at age 6, and the older girls there were all about cheer.
DeleteGrandson is now 8, played tee ball in Texas for two seasons and did not like it. NOW he's interested, and has become a really good pitcher and catcher. He thinks it's fun, and if we can get him the right coach next year, will enjoy the sport. I'm trying to keep him out of football to save his brain, but he played flag in Texas and loved it.
Saw the video on the news and it's unbelievable. Then for the guy to say, "it was taken out of context!" Really? What part of screaming girls do you not get?
Personally, I feel the absolute worst of the school sports is football. As you say, 3:44, they are started very early in Pee Wee football and by the time they get out of high school they are like our football captain when I graduated HS. As of then, he couldn't breathe because he had his nose broken AT LEAST 5 times. He could barely walk because of the knee and leg injuries received playing sports.
DeleteAll this because his father demanded he participate. Kept saying it would help him get into a good college.
There was one major problem with that idea: None of the good colleges would take him because he could no longer play!
Screwed up physically for life. And for what? Nothing!
My son played rec league kiddie soccer at 5 and 6, wanted to switch to baseball the next spring, and was told at 6 that he was "too old to start" because the "real" players started year-round t-ball when they were 3. That's just insane.
DeleteThere's nothing out there for normal kids who want to explore a lot of sports; you have to know at 3 years old what sport you must play for the rest of your life, and your parents must spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of thousands of hours carting you around. Kids used to play baseball (and kickball, and basketball, and tag, and hopscotch) in their own neighborhoods.
There's no longer any room in sports for the kid who enjoys doing it but doesn't want to make it their lifelong obsession.
ReplyDeleteSplits. I couldn't do those even as a child, and I have the wrong proportions for gymnastics (longish legs and shortish arms). But I was good at Track & Field. Coaches still don't get it? Guy has got to be a sadist.
ReplyDeleteIt hurts just to read about this. As a former dance student with unusually tight ligaments, I can't imagine the pain this poor girl must have gone through. He could easily cause permanent damage to the bodies of these young girls.
ReplyDeleteWhat was the district thinking, hiring someone who was already fired for this dangerous practice?
Probably got him "cheap".
DeleteThe district was thinking, "hooo, boy, this guy gets RESULTS! These kids might never learn to read and they'll be permanently disabled by 20, but we might make NATIONALS this year, by golly!" You know the parents are thinking the same thing.
DeleteSadly, some people on other websites are focusing on the fact that this cheerleader is white and the other's, as well as the coach are black. They are claiming that, if the situation was reversed there would be wall to wall news coverage and big demonstrations. One lady on Bristol's blog referred to the students and coach as "the blacks" WTF. I am certain that this was dong to all of the students, not just the white ones.
ReplyDeleteThat just crazy bringing up tace. If the couch was white,he'd still be an Asshole for doing that to that girl. My daughter was a cheap leader $$$$ in jr. high. The splits,flips,ect came easy for her. Not so for me. Had I had been in that girls shoes it'd felt like you were being ripped in half.
Deletei also was a ballet dancer at a young age and my teacher was very adamant about warming up your muscles and working on being limber over long period of time then maintaining that with specific series of exercises. you don't just drop into a split. i would imagine that not everyone can do it easily.
ReplyDeleteMy first martial arts teacher was very old school, straight out of rural China, but even though the exercises I did was asked to do were challenging (Holding the horse stance for over 30 minutes, hundreds of punches and kicks, handstands and back bends where I grabbed the back of my ankles.) there was nothing that caused any real pain or threat of injury.
ReplyDeleteMy husband also trains in martial arts and is a sensei. NEVER EVER would he do anything like what we hear about from other dojos. Yes, sometimes it hurts, sometimes mistakes happen and injuries occur, but you train as safely as you can while still pushing for more. I have friends who tell me stories of what their kids are doing in their dojos and I cringe. It's so dangerous to have people who don't have the true qualifications and understanding of actual coaching being in charge of clueless kids (and adults, of course) with such potential for real harm.
DeleteThis story angers me beyond my ability to express. My daughter went through competitive USAG gymnastics training all through the levels and that kind of training would have caused absolute outrage at ANY level. It takes time and patience to master skills and you never, ever force it. An over-split is helpful for gymnasts but there is NO reason for it in cheer! I am so sick of stories like this one and so many others where coaches who don't know what they are doing are literally taking these kids' lives and health into their hands and without any consideration to the long term effects of their "training."One of my daughter's best friends, a gymnast also, did cheer when she got to high school and because she was tiny they made her a flyer. A flyer who was DROPPED ON HER HEAD because the "coach" was a volunteer mom who didn't know what the hell she was doing. She had never recovered from that injury. She has brain damage. From CHEERLEADING. This crap has to STOP.
ReplyDeleteThat poor girl's inner thighs will never, ever feel right again. That was absolute ASSAULT.
What is the point of cheerleading? Turning on the crowd to get excited about the boys' sports.
DeleteWhat is a dojo?
ReplyDeleteSchool of martial arts.
DeleteWhen I was growing up, I seriously got into long distance running. I caught "the fever" from watching a show on the Apache Indians and how they could run for really long distances. I learned one of their tricks about running and found I was built almost perfectly for distance. (I learned a lot of them over the years.)
ReplyDeleteWhen I got to High School, I tried out for the track team and ran the mile. I won my first race with ease. The day after that meet, the JV coach took over the team and demanded every single one of us on the team had to run wind sprints. WIND SPRINTS! For a distance runner? Not a chance in HELL.
When I complained about it, he insisted all of us do it. I tried to convince the fool with his own books, but he flat refused to accept what was in his own college books. So I told him exactly what he could do with his wind sprints and quit. He complained to the principal. When I was able to show HIM the clauses about wind sprints for distance, he just looked at the JV coach and told him to go back to school. Cancelled his contract on the spot.
He was NOT a happy camper. Poor baby.
Leland, what is a 'wind sprint'? And why is it not good?
DeleteIt's been years since I did any track in the 1960 or early 1970s, and I'm not Leland, yet my experience of Wind Sprint is short distance running at your all out breakneck speed (running at your maximum speed), which a long distance runner doesn't need to do for long distance running or to practice it. Excuse my run on sentence. When I ran long distance, I was more interested in sustained running for endurance. Conserving energy so I'd finish the race, yet not coming in last either.
DeleteA terrible story of a 14-year-old boy who died "running sprints" on his second day of practice at his high school in the Bronx:
ReplyDeletewww.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/nyregion/few-answers-in-the-death-of-a-bronx-football-player.html
Wild Tortoise
Around here, cheer squads are always having fundraisers and standing outside grocery stores accosting people for money to go to Flor-uh-duh to compete; apparently that state makes a lot of money off stupid chumps who fly down there. If you pay the entrance fee, you can compete--doesn't matter if any of the girls are any good at the sport.
ReplyDeleteThe parents think the public should all pay to send their girls there.
When it comes to cheerleading, this isn't the only danger.
ReplyDeleteI had a voice teacher tell me of the dangers of cheerleadings excessive shouting.
She had a very promising young tenor who was also a cheerleader. He went to cheer camp one summer and came back forever damaged. He had damaged his vocal chords to such an extent that they were permanently bowed and he couldn't sing any more. He could have gone professional. Instead he sacrificed what could have been a career for a few weeks of cheerleading.
What happened to slowly increasing your ability to be limber by careful slow stretching exercises executed over a period of days/weeks/months? This 'trainer' is not qualified to train anyone. They don't know the basics and are a menace. You build up to this type of thing as you do with all exercises designed to result in increased range of motion. Serious injuries can result otherwise.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was young in the 1960s and early 1970s in Minnesota, I (and other classmates) had the physical education instructors, no, change that to physical sadism classes instructors, where they must have hired insane men out of the military who got off of hurting children, tweens and teens. I'll never forgive some of those bastards who actually hurt, harmed and damaged us in the name of physical 'education' because we didn't measure up to their macho standards in sadism athletics. The Bastards. I hope there is a hell for them. I do applaud the few, very few, who showed me the way to personal love of athletics. Yet more so, I applaud the many more authentic people, mostly out of school and in other classes such as the YMCA or YWCA during swimming classes or summer youth camps, who gave me a personal love of athletics. Also my dad and mom who understood that sometimes all it takes is encouragement, not bullying, and love, not yelling. The training wheels came off when I was quite young, about four, and I was able to ride on the streets (safe side streets) then. Of course the 1960s were a whole different world. No helmets. I was lucky. Yet I'm glad I found love for hiking, swimming, and more ... long distance running which I gave up years ago as I was concerned about my knees even when I was in my 20s. Thanks Mom, Dad, other loving athletic people. You gave me the athleticism I needed and cherish now.
ReplyDelete