Parents Parents’ perceptions of youth football differ …show more content…
People have different thoughts about youth football and have different reasons for letting their kids play football. Some parents played football when they were younger and would like their kids to play growing up. Other parents could possibly have gotten hurt playing football or observed another person get hurt and wouldn’t let their children play because of that. Those examples are some way that it ties back into the social learning theory. Everyone has an agenda, whether it’s in hopes of his or her kids going to the league or if its hopes of their kids going to college for free, the social learning theory says that people learned from “observation, imitation, and modeling”(Bandura 1971), which explains why parents think the way they think. When parents see stats like “135,000 children between the ages of 5-18 get treated for sports-related brain injuries” (Powers 2015), parents have to be taught that their children will be fine when they send them out to play youth …show more content…
Coaches want to win so bad that in a report by Shield (2005), “42% of coaches were heard yelling or cursing out a player because of a mistake that they made”. Coaches are starting to forget the real reason why they are out there. In an interview with the Jackson Ravens’ coach Richard Wilson (2015) he said, “ Youth football is a dangerous sport but it helps build character, team work and sometimes it even help families if the player can make it to the league”. Coach Wilson exemplifies the social learning theory because as a coach who played and noticed many injuries while coaching and playing the sport he knows the danger of football, but he can still see the reward. Some volunteer coaches even thought of youth football as a job. As odd as that sounds in South Florida “nine men were arrested for allegedly betting over a $100,000 on youth football games” (Kennedy 2012). Coaches are supposed to help kids, not exploit them. Shield (2005) also states “ 26% of coaches would allow cheating if it would help the team win. The coach’s perception of youth football tends to be an aggressive one, with the intent to win at all cost. Yelling and cursing at kids, and gambling on their games is a great indicator that the coaches tend to be rational in there thought processes because you have to know that if you get in trouble you will go to jail for gambling on youth football games. But, how could we judge