Amherst’s youth sports teams are coached by volunteers, often parents who began stepping up when their kids’ fourth-grade team needed someone. None are paid, whether on rec teams or travel teams.
To Recreation Director Rey Harp, that is the problem with a state plan to license every youth coach in Massachusetts.
A state working group has recommended that Massachusetts license every youth sports coach and referee as part of a broader plan, filed with the Legislature in August, for a new state agency overseeing youth sports. The agency would cover elementary and middle school-age athletes, GBH News reported.
The working group’s report says one state license would replace a patchwork of league-by-league background checks and stop a coach disciplined in one league from simply moving to another. In a town where youth sports run on the work of unpaid parents, Harp worries new requirements would drive off the volunteers on whom the programs depend.
“If we start to regulate those coaches and put them into classes and certification processes, we may lose a good number of those,” Harp said.
Amherst’s regional high school offers a different picture. Its coaches already complete MIAA coaching certification, CPR certification, implicit bias training and fingerprint-based background checks, said Victoria Dawson, director of athletics for Amherst Regional High School and Middle School.
Asked whether that has made it harder to hire or keep coaches, she said, “I don’t think so.”
The Special Working Group on Youth Sports, chaired by State Athletic Commission Chair Josh Zakim, made 11 recommendations. Its centerpiece is an independent agency to oversee youth sports, which no state agency does today, the report notes.
Under the proposal, no one could coach or referee a youth team without a state license. The agency would run criminal and sex-offender record checks itself and require training on concussions, player safety, abuse and bias.
Under the report’s draft legislation, applicants would pay a licensing fee set by the state, and coaching without a license could bring civil fines of up to $1,000 for a first violation. The report acknowledges licensing “could be a barrier to entry” and says the agency should be able to exempt some coaches, such as those in very small leagues. It does not say whether volunteer rec coaches would qualify.
Harp, who has led Amherst Recreation since 2021, is also head boys basketball coach at Northampton High School.
Amherst Recreation doesn’t pay its coaches, and the travel league its teams play in doesn’t pay coaches either, Harp said. The town can’t reimburse volunteers for training or certification. “We’re basically charging them to volunteer and work with kids,” he said.
He said he would welcome better-trained, even paid, coaches but said that finding the financial means to pay them would drive up fees. “I would love to be able to do that, but we just don’t have that type of funding,” he said.
Many volunteers already clear checks. State law requires youth sports organizations to run criminal record checks on volunteers, according to the report, and Mass Youth Soccer’s registration rules require every adult coaching in its member programs to hold an annual credential that includes background checks. Harp said he was speaking without knowing the proposal’s details.
Harp sees value in standards set by “an organization [that’s] put in place to protect kids and protect competition,” noting that high schools answer to the MIAA while town youth programs have no equivalent oversight.
His worry is that the working group had larger schools and communities in mind, where club sports play a much bigger role. If the rules for the East have to be the same as the rules for the West, he said, “there are realities here that make that a little bit different.”
Harp also worries about specialization. Top athletes increasingly leave for prep schools by eighth or ninth grade, he said, and town teams suffer when strong athletes stop playing multiple sports.
Dawson said she sees more multi-sport athletes now than when she played at Amherst Regional. “I think it’s getting better,” she said.
He doesn’t blame the clubs. “They serve a very important purpose,” he said. But he sees a shift underway: “We’re moving towards a European model,” in which “the highest quality development is outside of the school systems,” he said.
For Harp, town sports are where kids find out what they’re good at and what they like. “It’s a great thing for them to learn just what they’re capable of,” he said. “It’s superhero stuff.”
Sen. Barry Finegold, D-Andover, who served on the working group, told GBH News in August that youth sports had become “too expensive [for families], too long and denying kids opportunity.” He said he plans to file legislation in January to put some of the recommendations into law.
Finegold did not respond to the Gazette’s inquiries about how licensing would apply to volunteer coaches.
Until then, the working group’s recommendations are not law. Any new agency or licensing system would need approval from the Legislature.
Layla Penn writes for the Gazette from the Boston University Statehouse Program.