At CHSCA clinic, commissioner Angelico asks coaches to continue teaching life lessons
AURORA — In an address delivered at the annual Colorado High School Coaches Association multisport clinic on Friday, CHSAA commissioner Paul Angelico urged the gathered coaches to keep the focus of high school sports on education and life lessons.
He also spoke to reinforce the important role many coaches play as role models to young students.
“I come to you with a message of encouragement, of thanks,” Angelico told a packed gallery room at the The Radisson Hotel Denver Southeast in Aurora. “I was a parent of a high school athlete, and that coach is still one of the most influential people in my son’s life. … That’s what you will be to your kids for the rest of their lives.
“I just want to stand in front of you to remind you that that’s what this is about. What you do today affects your community, your school, and more importantly, your kids’ lives — moreso than just about anything else they’ll be doing in education.”
Angelico’s comments Friday reflected his recent open letter to parents, which speaks to the mission of high school sports. His message: Use athletics as an extension of the classroom.
“The whole reason that we have high school sports and activities is to try to put together students and caring adults on a playing field to be able to turn out better citizens in the long run,” Angelico said. “I know that in the process, we’re going to all focus on winning and how to get better. … (And) that is probably your goal. Your goals are probably to win as much as you can, to be as good as you can be. But that is not your purpose.
“We believe that we have to maintain the integrity of what high school sports are all about,” he continued later. “And that is centered on the fact that we need you and kids together on a playing field to learn about life in ways that they can’t learn in any other way.”
Angelico continued:
“Ben Franklin, I think it was, said, ‘If you tell me, I may hear you. If you teach me, I may remember. If you involve me, I may learn.’ And I think that’s what you do.
“I think every day you’re on the field with kids — or the court, or wherever you are — trying to teach them to learn to be better people for when they get out of school and how that will apply to what they do in their lives. That’s not a revolutionary theory. That’s something I know all of us in this room believe in.
“My fears are that as time goes by, the product you’re getting in the door — the students, and the adults you see regularly — have a whole different set of goals. You’re getting kids and parents in every day, and more and more so every year, that their goal is to make sure that their son or daughter — or, that they as a player — are the star athlete and the center of attention, and the focus of what you do, and get all the playing time, and on and on and on.
“Without a good center of what we’re about, you spend all your time arguing and fighting about why Johnny’s not playing, or why Johnny isn’t better than he is, or why Johnny didn’t get a scholarship.”
Angelico, a longtime gymnastics coach before he became an administrator, said the focus should not be on the elite athletes, or winning.
“The state of Colorado spends billions of dollars on education. Millions go to athletics and activities through school funding,” he said. “Taxpayers don’t spend that money so that 3 percent of those kids — 3 percent — will go on to college.
“It doesn’t matter how good you make your programs, it doesn’t matter how many star athletes you have, three percent of the kids in this state will go on to college and get part of their college paid for. We have to be broader than that. We have to be about developing better human beings, great citizens, compassionate people that will be leaders as they move forward in their lives.”
After Angelico’s speech, each CHSAA administrator met with coaches of the respective sports they administer during sport-specific sessions at the CHSCA clinic, which runs through Saturday.
