One of my responsibilities as a moderator is to help keep the talk forum jumping and to bring up new issues. I just noticed this morning the approval and recommendations from USA Kansas regarding the coaches code of conduct and application. I am personally in favor of this and believe that the recommendations and actions could have been even stronger in requiring a background check on all coaches. I am interested as to if this was discussed and what individuals think.
I know that USA Wrestling is encouraging states and clubs to do background checks on coaches and that the process is not very expensive. As a parent and as a coach, I would have no issue with this if it were required in order to obtain my coaches card or coach with a club. Is this something that USA Kansas has discussed and what is the progress of those discussions? What are reasons for or against a background check of coaches? As parents I don't think many would object to a small additional cost to insure the safety and well being of the children.
Currently outside of the forms themselves, how do clubs protect their children and assure that they have coaches who are appropriate?
At this point and time it appears as if the efforts are suggestions and not requirements, should their have been more teeth to those recommendations? I believe that the Code of Conduct is a strong document that should be required of coaches as opposed to just suggested. As a parent of a wrestler, it would make a difference if I knew in advance that clubs did background checks on their coaches and adhered to these documents. I would opt to take my child to a club that honored and used these documents and did a background check over a club that did not. What do you think?
The links to the two documents are as follows:
http://www.usawks.com/CoachCodeConduct.pdf http://www.usawks.com/CoachApp.pdf