The Top Ten Youth Sports Stories of 2016, At Least On This Blog (Part Two) – Forbes

If you missed part one of the top 10 countdown on Your Kid’s Not Going Pro, you can read it here. Now, onto the top five:

5. The ‘Stunning Hypocrisy’ of Dennis Hastert: Speaker, Coach, Sexual Abuser (April 6)

The term ‘stunning hypocrisy’ was used by the Assistant U.S. Attorney trying the case against former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, who was eventually convicted on banking law violations that landed him a 15-month prison sentence. Hastert was trying to skirt reporting laws put in place under the Patriot Act, enacted while he was the Speaker. But the hypocrisy didn’t end there — it turned out Hastert was trying to keep this on the down low because he was paying for the silence of one of the five wrestlers (as identified in court documents) he sexually abused while he was wrestling coach at Yorkville (Ill.) High School.

While there are background checks and a better awareness by all involved that hopefully is making sexual abuse by coaches less common than it was while Hastert coached in the 1960s and 1970s, unfortunately the problem hasn’t gone away. In my opinion, my hometown paper, The Indianapolis Star, deserves a Pulitzer Prize for how it’s shined a light on sexual abuse in girls gymnastics, and how adults up to and including USA Gymnastics, the sport’s governing body, failed to report cases and protected coaches over children.

4. Sports Authority Failure, Youth Participation Drop Portend Bleak Days For Retailers (May 19)

It’s a post-Christmas tradition: figuring out which retailers, having suffered through a slow holiday season on top of already sagging sales, will shut stores or close down completely as the new year begins. However, Sports Authority beat them to the punch by not even making it that far after failing to work out new terms with its lenders. (My local ex-Sports Authority location became a common site at flagging strip malls: a Halloween pop-up store.)

For all the trends affecting sporting goods retailers, the big one isn’t unique to them — people buying stuff online. Dick’s Sporting Goods, the presumed strong player in this category, is hedging its bets by expanding into tech-based businesses aimed at youth leagues. (That’s a business that is attracting a lot of interest from various players, including Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.)

3. A High School Football Program Just Got The SMU-Style Death Penalty (June 8)