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The role of the coach. The responsibilites of a coach. The education of a coach. It’s an important function and voluntary outside of the professional ranks.

Many people don’t realize the vast amount of hours coaches devote to helping young people. But maybe it’s also time that school Boards, who tend to look at them as performing a baby-sitting role with after classroom supervision at sports, take these individuals more seriously.

When a coach steps up to represent a school, take responsibility for students, that coach should be capable and qualified. Enough of the teachers who stand around looking like they know how to coach, when they lack the skills.

If it means shutting down certain teams, so be it. But there could be a way of avoiding this kind of action.

Changes need to be made and reviews of insurance coverage too.  When a student gets hurt in a game, and injuries do happen, I’ve seen coaches cringe. Not just at the injured athlete, but at possible legal action.

So much money is being spent at school professional development sessions, maybe school boards and organizations like the Ontario Physical and Health Education Association and the Ontario Federation of Schools Athletic Association need to do some homework and come up with programs to recruit coaches, then educate them and follow-up to ensure that the voluntary job is getting done - the right way.

A coach who knows his or her function should also be in a position to deal with athletes who can get out control, escalate tensions in a game or even create serious problems.

This Sunday, on the FAN’s HIGH SCHOOL SHOW, a variety of guests will examine the important, and also sensitive, role of a coach. Listen in - 9am to 10a.m.

Kudos to Donovan Bailey. Yes, the former World and Olympic sprint champ.

And not because he took time to appear on the HIGH SCHOOL SHOW heard today on the FAN 590. The 10-minute interview is on AUDIO at www.fan590.com

Bailey liked what he read in the Toronto Star about a high school sprinter Dushane Farrier from Neil McNeil in Toronto. How Farrier turned his life around, is now doing well in school, on the track and involved in a very successful school leadership program. He surprised Farrier at a practice and had a nice discussion with him.

When informed that stats from the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports still claim that some male teenagers are taking performance enhancing drugs, Bailey said those kids have “massive insecurity problems”.

Bailey said winning was fine, and that came from hard work, good nutrition and excellent coaching but stressed that “academics was essential and the driving force on how to be productive members of society”.

Nice to hear it from him but even nicer if the athletes understand his message.

Lots of fireworks on this Victoria Day weekend - and not all outdoors.

Like the baseball tournament final that ended in Oshawa, depending on who you speak with on this, without a championship game. Yet, a winner was determined. And in track, in one Toronto region  anyway, a fifth year student isn’t eligible to compete because of an age rule. Get this, she would be eligible for the Metro and Ontario finals. And the Birchmount Exceptional Athlete Program pumped about graduating a handful of athletes to U.S. schools, while not much is said about those higher institutions of learning in Canada.

Also on the HIGH SCHOOL SHOW today, an interesting way to keep football alive - especially in rural areas and some urban centres who are having difficulties maintaining what can be an expensive sport.

In the Bancroft area, six-person football. You read that correctly. Similar rules to the game with 12 players. Tackling too. Girls and boys on the same team. Got to see it played to understand it more. But, borrowed from Saskatchewan, the idea sounds good.

And then the marvellous story about a grade 9 girl who, competing for North Toronto Collegiate, won four individual and one team gold medal at a regional track and field meet. What makes it even more interesting: the coach is a fellow student and the school doesn’t even have a track.

Well, that might be a bit mis-leading.

But this Sunday, Mother’s Day, we’ll be taking you our to the ball game in a different weay: talking baseball for one hour on the HIGH SCHOOL SHOW starting at 9:05am.

Everything from, well, should there be a Mercy Rule?

How about the on-going battle between using wood or aluminum bats?

Is it fair to have a baseball season in five weeks?

Who calls the shots on players: school coaches or club coaches or parents?

What teams are hot, who is not?

And the Prentice Cup, the Blue Jays-sponsored trophy gors this year to which team.

Well, coaches from various leagues will guest with me and we’ll also hear from  Kevin Briand, the Blue Jays Director of Canadian Scouting.

Lots happening. Tune us in. Sunday at 9:05am