Danny O’Neil: Stop moving kids based on high school athletic wins

Danny O’Neil’s commentary taken from Friday’s edition of Seattle’s Morning News on KIRO Radio 97.3 FM.

Butch Goncharoff is one of the most effective coaches that I’ve ever covered. He is a great coach.

At the same time that Butch is a great coach, Bellevue High School is the one school that, for the past 15 years, kids move out of their district and end up going to.

We should not be tolerating or encouraging kids to relocate based on high school athletic victories – to go to the best program.

I know that that will anger some people who believe that their job as a parent is to get their kid to the best program to give them the best chance at a scholarship. I think that that mindset leads to the sort of decisions and abuses that ruin youth sports, which includes high school.

Who stops it?

I don’t think it’s a monitoring agency. I don’t think it’s the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association; they’re not equipped to be enforcement.

What stops it is telling parents that that’s not the right way to parent.

It’s not going to be changed by a sermon, but it’s going to be changed by people around realizing that it’s not something that should happen.

There’s a certain amount of tolerance that we’ve exhibited for people that do that and, at times, actually encourage it.

Danny O’Neil’s commentary taken from Friday’s edition of Seattle’s Morning News on KIRO Radio 97.3 FM.