Written by Yes, the photo you are looking at is of a chair. I had many chairs thrown at me as an athlete. All of them were thrown by a coach. Normally, coaches were throwing chairs to try and motivate the athlete, or maybe it was out of frustration.
In my career as an athlete, I had almost everything thrown at me during practice: Chairs, balls, water bottle, water jugs, medicine balls (Yes, those weighted balls filled with liquid), tables, full cans of soda or beer, bags of ice, clipboards, shoes, chains, gardening tools, metal and wooden poles, weights, and so many other things that I just cannot think about right now. Folding metal chairs normally did the most damage. However, when you are swimming in the pool, white plastic chairs are the worst if they do not hit you when they are thrown at you, as they sit in the water waiting for you to run into them.
While it may seem a little funny, it really is not. Almost all of these coaches adversely impacted me in other ways, other than physically injuring me, specifically mentally and emotionally. The mental and emotional damage they did hurt way worse than the physical damage. While the adversity itself and resiliency that was learned was helpful in life, no athlete needs this as there are too many physical, mental, and emotional aspects of preparing for competition to worry about.
As a leader in a sports organization, having those types of explosive and volatile coaches is not only a legal liability, but athletes’ health is at stake. You may have a quarterback, swimmer, jumper, outfielder, kicker, goalie, who may not be performing at their peak level because of the damage a coach is doing to them. If one athlete is adversely impacted, obviously the whole team will not perform as well as they can. Think of the lifespan of an athlete with your organization and how much time they will lose due to mental, physical, and emotional abuse. Just something to think about when you are hiring your next assistant, coach, trainer, medical personnel, management, or support staff.