sports

Japanese sports bodies seek to stamp out bullying by coaches

11 Comments

The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.

© KYODO

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

11 Comments
Login to comment

And hopefully this will extend to the "god" of Japanese sports, "yakkyu" eventually too!

Baseball coaches here are "lord and master" to their teams and I hope that the rules being created to stop abusive coaches also includes putting curbs on abusing the bodies of the young athletes as well.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Back at my California high school, we athletes knew that the coaches knew that we were in high demand. The result was mutual respect as we could quit or cross over to a different sport. Once, our somewhat elderly coach promised to run the steepest hill on our cross country course ("Puke Hill," we called it) ten times if we'd won a tournament. We stopped him after three, and one team member was thoughtful enough to have brought a beer for him, which he chugged gratefully.

We valued and reciprocated our efforts. That is coaching.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

A good move.

Japanese coaches and parents are also hugely mistaken in thinking that there is such a thing as an elite junior athlete who will go on to be an all-conquering adult. Such people are rare, because the factors that make kids the best (naturally big or fast being the big one) are not the ones that make adults the best (dedication, good coaching, willingness to listen, environment, resistance to injury) . For sports where there is decent participation (read: not Japan where everyone has to commit to one sport at a very young age and abandon all others), there can be little or no correlation between young champions and adult ones. As an example, here is the England U18 football team from 2015

*Goalkeepers**: Magnus Norman (Fulham), Sam Howes (West Ham United).*

*Defenders**: Jonjoe Kenny (Everton), Taylor Moore (RC Lens), Jake Clarke-Salter (Chelsea), Callum Connolly (Everton), Kyle Walker-Peters (Tottenham Hotspur), Tosin Adarabioyo (Manchester City), Max Lowe (Derby County).*

*Midfielders:** Ryan Ledson (Everton), Louis Reed (Sheffield United), Josh Onomah (Tottenham Hotspur), Ainsley Maitland-Niles (Arsenal), Luke Amos (Tottenham Hotspur).*

*Forwards: **Harrison Chapman (Middlesbrough), Adam Armstrong (Newcastle United), Dominic Solanke (Chelsea), Josh Sims (Southampton), Tammy Abraham (Chelsea), Sheyi Ojo (Wigan Athletic, loan from Liverpool).*

Despite being the best in England at 18, hardly any of them start for a top flight team now when they are 22. They are mostly lower league players. That's 18, when they are nearly fully grown! Getting into the England U15 team means even less. For endurance events, the winner is usually around thirty. What you want to do with a twelve year old is encourage a love of running, not scream at them to go faster when they are already on the limit. My own experience of watching my kids is that they will do far too much training and go to too many races, i.e., are constantly judged on performance. As a parent, it is very easy to get sucked into obsessing over your child's ability. The default is helicopter parent. From what I can see, most parents don't do any sports themselves and simply follow their kids around. They will never do the sport in question as a family.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

So, will this start in the first grade of junior high school? The Japanese culture of ‘Kohai-Sempai’ is structured on bullying. That is the whole point of it. Japan cannot change their traditional culture. Therefor, this article means nothing!

1 ( +3 / -2 )

chinese coaches bully their athletes...and that's why their athletes are gold medal winners. The coaches are 'god' to the athletes and instill discipline in them.

-5 ( +0 / -5 )

The Koreans coaches do the same to their athletes. That's why Korean athletes are also more disciplined too.

-5 ( +0 / -5 )

Before we get too high and mighty criticizing the Japanese on this, we also need to realize this is a widespread problem in many western sports cultures as well. I can only speak for America, but dictator-like coaches in basketball and (American) football are the norm, especially in college where the athletes have zero leverage over celebrity coaches. See Tom Izzo's explosion at this year's NCAA men's basketball tournament for a recent example.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

If this catches on in sport it would be good, but seriously IJIME needs its arse kicked OUT of J-society, it is absolutely pervasive & a hugely negative thing!

And yeah sempi-kohai are just two words that = ijime  90% of the time

Had I grown up here I would have HATED sport & participated in a lot of different sports growing up, harsh coaches were a rarity thank goodness!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

So, will this start in the first grade of junior high school?

It starts far sooner, when kids play little league baseball, many start in kindergarten or 1st grade, and they are immediately introduced to the sempai-kohai system. And not that wont change, because for all the BS people may read about it, in many areas of life here, it's not all bad.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

How about they start by imprisoning the coach who beat students on the volleyball team but got off not only 100% Scott free, but likely a pay raise and could keep on working:

https://soranews24.com/2017/12/02/japanese-high-school-volleyball-player-beaten-by-coach-teammates-for-violating-no-dating-rule/

The swimming coach who bullied? The basketball coach? No? This is just more of the traditional Japanese lip-service before a major international event in which they might look bad if they don't engage in said lip-service. If they are serious, they will immediately fire and charge anyone found to have been abusive, but nope... it's going to be a "from now" attitude, and likely "up to the organizations to police and enforce". And the whole "it won't change overnight" is proof of that. It can change overnight, Japan just doesn't have the courage or strength to make it so.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites