Sidelines brings you late-breaking stories, links to Coach & AD editorial features, news you need from manufacturers and suppliers, and a chance to interact with fellow coaches and ADs on subjects of mutual interest. It also provides you with an opportunity to tell our editors about topics you need to know more about from the coaching world.

Happy New Year,
Kevin Newell
Editor, Coach & Athletic Director Magazine

JANUARY Coach of the Month:
Sean Driscoll, Head Football Coach, Winthrop (MA) H.S.

In his first season as Winthrop High’s Head Football Coach, Sean Driscoll experienced tremendous victories and heartbreaking losses – the latter not all occurring on the playing field.

Nominate Your Coach for Scholastic Coach & Athletic Director/National Collegiate
Scouting Association (NCSA) Coach of the Month

High school coaches are America’s unsung heroes. Tell us why your coach should be the Coach & Athletic Director High School Coach of the Month.

Featured Instructional Story
Shooting Progression

With the exception of the penalty kick and a restart situation there are no shots in soccer taken from a ball that is not moving. In fact, most shots and subsequent goals are a result of dribbling and passing combinations.

Featured Powerline Story
Athletic Nutrition Bytes: Fueling the Body for Competition

Athletes are taught that being a part of a winning team requires discipline and attention to detail in the classroom, on and off the field, and in the food choices they put on their plate.

Featured Administration Story
Controlling Interruptions

Does anyone doubt that the passage of time complicates the Athletic Director position? Almost monthly, it inherits new responsibilities without disinheriting the old.

Featured National Collegiate Scouting Association (NCSA) Story
Ice Hockey: Approaching Your High School Coach

At some point during every high school hockey player’s career he or she will need to initiate dialogue with their coach.

Featured Product
DRAZ ATHLETICS

The Weighted Agility Gloves (The WAG’s) are the ultimate finger, hand, wrist, and forearm training aid to enhance strength, quickness, agility, and dexterity, according to the company.

Did You See This?
Foul Ball!

Forget Barry Bonds’ record-breaking home run baseball — the hottest item in sports memorabilia these days is an 1898 National League document advising foul-mouthed ballplayers to put a lid on potty talk.

The document, which cites numerous examples of dirty words and phrases used by turn-of-the-century athletes, is not only significant because it would make junior high school boys titter: It also contains some of the earliest documented references to several curse words, linguists say.

Robert Edward Auctions of New Jersey received the document, “Special Instructions to Players,” along with other circa 1900 pieces from the estate of baseball historian Al Kermisch.

“It is so over the top that at first we thought it was some type of a joke,” REA president Rob Lifson said.

“But as we examined the paper, found that this language did exist in the 1890s, considered that general rowdiness and the use of obscene language by players were big issues in baseball in this era, and noted that the accompanying items were all from the same era, we soon realized that that this was not a joke at all.

“This was actually a fascinating and historically significant baseball document, distributed to National League players, that captures an aspect of professional baseball from the rough-and-tumble single-League 1890s era that is not well documented.”

Lifson said he has received calls from linguists and baseball historians about the document, which has become the talk of the blogosphere.
— Michael O’Keefe, New York Daily News.