Donald Collins, J.D.

Following a near fatal injury, the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) announced that it will require metal bats to meet the Batted Ball Coefficient of Restitution Test Performance Standard (BBCOR) and ban composite bats effective immediately.

The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) is implementing a new concussion rule for the 2010-11 academic year which not only requires immediate removal of any athlete suspected of having suffered a concussion but bans his return until cleared to play by an appropriate health-care professional. This rule also covers youth leagues that play under high school rules or modified high school rules, but does not apply in those states where even stricter concussion laws have been recently passed.

A Nashville basketball player reacted to a dispute with his coach by threatening to kill the coach … literally! But wait a minute. The player issued the threat on Facebook, writing, "I’ma kill em all." The player was expelled, triggering a debate over whether a threat is really a threat, and whether people who threaten on Facebook are really threatening or just venting

In rejecting the argument that competitive cheer at Quinnipiac Univeristy was a sport, a federal court in Connecticut agreed with the federal Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights' (OCR) that its criteria for qualifying as a sport - including having a defined season and spending more time competing than supporting other teams - had not been met.  

Bad acts in women’s soccer gained national notoriety in the fourth quarter of 2009.  An ugly brawl involving players and spectators at the Rhode Island girls’ state high school soccer championship combined with a University of New Mexico college player who was caught on film committing a series of dirty and exceedingly physical plays led the national sports media to reflect on the state of women’s sports.  It was almost as if the national media discovered that women can compete intensely, commit dirty plays and engage in bad acts … kind of like, dare I say, men.

The worst bad act in this quarter was also the most unusual.  A player in a Chicago youth league designed to keep troubled teens off the street shot his coach.  The coach’s sin?  He removed the player from the game.  Playing time disputes have reached depths that none of us could have imagined.  While coaches are not generally shot over their substitution patterns, this is an extreme illustration of the pressures that coaches are under over playing time.

Post-game handshakes are a recurring problem in youth and high school sports.  In New Jersey, the post-game handshake became a post-game headbutt as a Little League coach allegedly headbutted a rival coach after the post-game handshake after a game in June.

There's a shortage of officials. It's not surprising that this shortage filters down to the youth level.  Fortunately, youth leagues have some special tools to fight the shortage.

The Chicago Public Schools experienced a wave of gun violence in 2008-09; indeed, over 30 CPS students were murdered in the 2008-09 school year. Some of this gun violence spilled over to athletic contests. In January, Chicago had two shooting incidents at high school basketball games - bad acts don't get worse than this.

Blake Ress, the head of the Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA), didn't let his personal bias get in the way when he dropped a rule barring girls from playing baseball that violated Title IX.