It might have looked bad aesthetically, but hitting him in the chest, obliquely, where he’s padded doesn’t move the needle for me. In 6th grade, I had a coach grab me by the facemask and almost throw me to the ground for being offsides.
Yeah, and I went through the same shit as a 7th grader in 1992.
Like when we'd fuck up a drill under the blazing Texas sun which meant we weren't allowed to take a water break, which is beyond idiotic as it put us in real danger. And yet like smacking a kid in the head or cursing him out while grabbing his facemask, that was acceptable for coaches to do back then too.
But don't you think that's a pretty stupid thing to do and something that needed to change?
That shit was NEVER cool to do and it killed a lot of kids in Texas jr. high and high school football over the years which is why they can't do that anymore and why water breaks and cool-off periods are mandatory now.
And you know what I call a coach that is a grown ass man that does that to a 12 year old?
A fucking loser.
And while I don't think this coach needed to be worried about hurting a professional athlete's feelings, I do think he went too far.
Again, I grew up in the same sort of culture and society that all you guys did and I'm in agreement that today's younger generations are way too fucking soft and sensitive.
But that doesn't mean EVERYTHING we experienced or saw or were exposed to growing up was ok or acceptable and didn't need to change.