“Sports Done Right: A Call to Action on Behalf of Maine’s Student-Athletes” is centered on seven core principles and supporting practices that describe what healthy sports programs look like. Also highlighting the report are items that red flag troubling trends, negative behaviors and attitudes, and policies that should be eliminated.

The University of Maine initiative, funded by a Congressional allocation, was launched Oct. 30, 2003, under the co-direction of J. Duke Albanese, policy adviser for the Great Maine Schools Project at the Sen. George J. Mitchell Scholarship Research Institute and former Maine education commissioner, and Robert A.

Cobb, dean of the UMaine College of Education and Human Development.

It provides a working philosophical base for guiding youth sports, linking sports to the overall school mission and community values, while supporting quality coaching education.

Core principles identified cover the areas of: Philosophy, Values and Sportsmanship, Sports and Learning, Parents and Community, Quality of Coaching, Opportunity to Play, Health and Fitness, and Leadership, Polity and Organization.

Approximately 400 school administrators, policymakers, sports leaders and student-athletes attended the rollout of the report in January 2005.

Source: The Maine Center for Sports and Coaching, University of Maine