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BAD TREND: Parents Taking Coaches to Court Over Playing Time, Lost Recruiting Opportunities
By Kimberly Epps, The Washington Post
06/06/2003

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. -- J.D. Martinez pitched 50 innings during his junior year for Corona del Mar High School. On that, everyone can agree. But beyond that, things get nasty.

Coach John Emme said 50 innings was about average for a three-month season but cautioned Martinez that he was throwing too hard and that he'd bench him if he didn't take it easier. Martinez's father, Marc, argued that it was Emme who pushing his son to throw too much, harming his chances at being recruited by a college team.

Martinez yanked his son off the team before J.D.'s senior year and out of Emme's baseball class. The team went on to the league championship without J.D.

And then came the lawsuits.

Martinez sued Emme, alleging the coach damaged his son's scholarship chances. A judge threw out that suit. Then Martinez sued Emme again, accusing him of embarrassing J.D. with statements Emme made to a local newspaper. A judge threw out that suit as well. Then Emme sued Martinez, seeking $1 million for damage to his reputation.

There was a time when disputes between coaches and the parents of their players were confined to the sidelines. Now, increasingly, they're winding up in the courthouse.

Parents and players sue coaches over being cut from a team or not getting enough playing time. Thousands of these "disappointment lawsuits" are threatened each year, experts said, and dozens actually end up before a judge.

"We adults are taking the fun out of sports," said Tim Flannery, assistant director of the National Federation of State High School Associations. "This is not a professional team. It's about providing an extracurricular program where kids can learn something they can't learn in the classroom."

Three years ago, the federation recommended for the first time that coaches carry three times the amount of liability insurance that their school provides, just in case.

With 22,000 high schools and 800,000 interscholastic coaches across the country, the numbers of lawsuits may not be staggering. What is disturbing, sports law specialists say, is that these lawsuits are filed in the first place. An increasingly litigious society and a sense of entitlement by parents who expect something for all the time and money they invested in team travel and year-round competition have sparked the trend in the past 10 years.

Martinez said he had no choice but to go to court, having exhausted all other remedies, including going through a months-long school district complaint process. He plans to appeal the dismissal of his second suit.

"All I want is for Coach Emme to acknowledge that he overpitched some pitchers and correct the statements he made to some college coaches about J.D.," Martinez said. "Yes, it is a small thing when you look at all the people dying in Iraq, but if I didn't do anything, he's gotten away with what he did, and that's not right either."

Few of these lawsuits are successful, said Herb Appenzeller, editor of From the Gym to the Jury, a newsletter that follows sports risk-management issues. But parents keep filing them anyway.

In Levittown, Pa., a high school softball player sued her coach for $700,000 for teaching her an illegal pitching technique, alleging the move damaged her scholarship prospects.

Last April, the girls' varsity soccer coach at Millard North High School in Omaha resigned after being threatened with a lawsuit by parents who were bringing stopwatches to games to keep track of playing time.

In 2001, Lynn Rubin sued the New Haven Unified School District in Union City, Calif., because his son, Jawaan, was bumped down to junior varsity after he tried out for the varsity. Rubin alleged that the coach was playing favorites by not putting his son on the team. Rubin sought the coach's dismissal and $1.5 million for Jawaan's future professional worth.

Times have changed, Rubin said, noting the increase in off-season play and ranking and recruiting of younger and younger players.

"You have a lot of coaches who don't want to get with the way things are," he said. "It's wrong for us as a school district to not put the best kids out there. Why would Oregon and Pepperdine and all these people be contacting him if he can't even make varsity?"

The lawsuit was dismissed, but Rubin said it was worth the controversy, because complaints are now taken seriously by the school district. Jawaan will transfer to a new high school in the fall.

Intensely involved parents are nothing new in sports. But the emergence and earning power of young phenoms such as Tiger Woods and Venus and Serena Williams, who were pushed by their parents to succeed, and Ohio high school basketball standout LeBron James, who raised the bar for players everywhere, have forced a shift in focus at the high school level. Decisions made on the high school field today could have an impact on an athlete's professional career, parents say.

"They're expected to be the next Kobe Bryant or whoever. But the percentage [at that skill level] is so minuscule that it's not even worth mentioning," said Wayne Carney, past president of the National High School Athletic Coaches Association.

But there is some method to the madness, said Robert Jarvis, a professor of sports law at Nova Southeastern University.

"If you figure out early on that your child is not the next Einstein, it makes a lot of fiscal sense to encourage your child to develop their athletic ability to the best they can," Jarvis said. "There are 1,600 colleges out there and most of them give some kind of scholarship."

The lawsuits come at a price, costing already cash-strapped school districts thousands of dollars to defend their coaches. Newport-Mesa Unified School District spent $17,000 on Emme's defense. Three years ago, the high schools federation began to recommend that coaches carry a minimum of $3 million in insurance, compared with the $1 million provided by schools, in response to an increased number of lawsuits. Coaches can get an additional $1 million of coverage from the federation if they complete its coaching education program, and state coaching associations provide additional coverage to their members for a couple of dollars a year.

Nick Schroeder, director of physical education and athletics for the Smithtown School District on Long Island, requires every athlete to bring a "caring adult" to a preseason seminar that lays out expectations for athletes and parents. The meetings, which have been mandated for the past decade, have made parent complaints almost nonexistent, Schroeder said.

Emme now carries his lawyer's business card, worn and creased, in his wallet.

"After what I've gone through, every parent I talk to, I wonder is this going to be another one," Emme said. "You walk around with suspicion and doubt when I never had that before."

Emme is not alone. Coaches across the country are wondering if their love for the game is worth the low salaries and enormous time commitment of coaching, especially if getting dragged into court is a possibility. Some states are struggling to recruit and retain qualified coaches. Nationally, 20 percent of coaches quit every year. The idea of a lifelong coach may be soon be the exception rather than the rule, Appenzeller said.

In 1998 in Texas, the parents of Cypress Falls High School athlete Kyle Rutherford sued his baseball and football coaches when he was benched for the last game of his senior year. The benching came after he blamed the football coach's losing record for costing him a scholarship.

In dismissing the suit, federal Judge John Rainey wrote, "[T]he courts should not get involved in second-guessing a coach's decision to play one person over another. Federal judges issue opinions and orders, not starting lineups."