I 

was 19 then — a socially 
anxious first-year — with time 
on my hands and a tendency 

to procrastinate. I wanted better 
time management skills and, most 
importantly, money for books and 
Panda Express. After winter break 
was over, I immediately emailed 
two people at the library about 
potentially working there for a few 
hours per week. The supervisor 
replied promptly, asking for a meet-
up the next day. I’ll call him Matt.

I was told to meet up with Matt 

and another supervisor at the café 
on the first floor of the library. I was 
a little jittery — this was my first 
time applying for a job on campus 
— and after all, I knew I might not 
get it. Matt and a woman showed 
up soon, and we all sat down at 
a small table in the corner. They 
asked for my schedule and resume, 
which they quickly glanced over, 
and Matt smirked at. When I said I 
needed a little time to reflect before 
I signed up for shifts — my class 
schedule was up in the air — Matt 
said that he was not a scary person 
to work with.

Something about the comment 

and the way he stared almost 
piercingly made me feel slightly 
uneasy, slightly creeped out and 
caught off-guard. He had white 
hair, he’d hardly smiled during the 
conversation, and he was in his 
50s, at least. I left the interview, 
feeling a little worried, pondering 
about my next step. I was possibly 
overthinking it. I was too prone to 
jump to conclusions.

I emailed Matt two days later, 

saying I was ready to start at the 
earliest date possible. I needed a 
few signatures from him before 
going to Student Activities and 
getting my documents finalized. 
He replied quickly, asking me to 
meet him for a cup of coffee at the 
same café.

It was around noon; students 

and staff were flocking in and out 
of the doors and gathering around 
the couches. I bought a small coffee 
and sat at a table in the middle of 
the crowd, pulling my phone out 
to check the time. I felt someone 
lightly tap me on the shoulder 
before he pulled a chair across from 
me and sat down.

Matt looked quite excited. He 

was wearing a tight, turtleneck 

sweater, he reeked of cologne and 
sweat and his glasses tilted on his 
nose. I asked whether the other 
supervisor from last time would 
join us. He said no, seemingly 
pleased. He then proceeded to 
ask me how my day was going, 
what classes I was taking, what I 
liked doing in my free time, etc. It 
appeared friendly and innocent, 
but something felt disconcerting. 
I tried to bottle the feeling of 
apprehensiveness rising inside me. 
I attempted to divert his attention 
toward the papers he needed to 
sign so I could get up and leave.

He signed slowly, lifted his hand 

up and paused, a smile protruding 
from the corner of his mouth. 
He leaned in, peering closer — I 
abruptly saw his white eyelashes 
— and placed his hand on both of 
mine. He gave them a squeeze and 
asked smoothly, “Are you going to 
hire me?”

“What?” I sputtered after a few 

seconds. “N-no.”

He repeated, squeezing my 

hands again, laughing quietly.

I got up, feeling flabbergasted 

and numb. He immediately came 
over to my side and pulled out my 
chair for me. I left, muttering a 
goodbye and running towards the 
bus stop. My legs felt heavy, a little 
shaky; I knew something wasn’t 
right, but I didn’t know what I 
should be doing. As I waited, I saw 
that he’d followed me to the bus 
stop. When he caught me glancing, 
he turned around and struck up 
a conversation with someone 
else. The whole thing felt bizarre, 
violating 
and 
wrong. 
During 

classes, I wondered and worried.

I ended up not taking the job. 

For a while, I tried to force myself 
into taking it, believing that 
nothing would happen. I could 
manage it, I thought. I just had to 
make sure that the two of us were 
never alone in a room. I blamed 

myself, wondering why I didn’t say 
anything to his face, why I felt a 
sense of cowardice enveloping me 
then. I also didn’t feel like going to 
the library anymore, and I’d gone 
there almost every other night to 
study. Occasionally seeing him 
there — even as I tried my best to 
avoid him — made me feel queasy 
and angry. I understood that 
what he’d done wasn’t something 
huge, but there was a chance 
that something more could’ve 
happened. I sensed it, I felt it in my 
gut and I knew I wouldn’t be able 
to fend for myself if the situation 
got worse.

I hated that I had to worry about 

fending for myself in a workplace 
even as it boasted about having zero 
tolerance for sexual harassment. 
I hated that I didn’t know who to 
tell, that my incident would get 
chalked up to nothing and that I’d 
be going against an experienced 
supervisor who was also a white 
man. I’d seen it happen to others 
too many times to imagine my 
situation would’ve been different. I 
knew if I joined his team, I’d dread 
seeing him every day.

I kept quiet for three years and 

moved on, but I remembered it. I 
remembered it when I applied for 
another job on campus and hoped 
that it wouldn’t be a man who’d 
interview me. I remembered it 
when I seated myself far away from 
male co-workers and professors in 
cramped offices.

I remembered it well enough 

to know that everything I’ve felt 
back then does matter. It might 
not be a big deal when compared 
to many other cases, but it was 
still humiliating, unnecessary and 
violating of my personal space. It 
was still sexual harassment. It was 
still the same story about a man 
inappropriately touching a woman 
and getting away without any 
consequences.

I 

hated 
running 
after 

baseball games. After all, 
baseball 
isn’t 
much 
of 

an endurance sport, and the 
punishment of choice for most 
of my coaches after a poor 
performance was making us run 
from foul pole to foul pole for 
what seemed like an eternity. 

Of course, this wasn’t the 

case for every team I played 
on, and it happened mostly 
after age 13 when baseball 
became 
more 
competitive. 

But throughout my career, the 
majority of coaches treated 
us as professionals — despite 
the fact that most of us were 
unable to do our own laundry, 
couldn’t cook an egg and 
definitely could not drive.

So, when I took my first 

job as an assistant coach for 
13-year-olds this past summer, 
I vowed to find alternatives to 
running as punishment, which 
I saw as a counterproductive 
and negative strategy. Perhaps 
ignorant and naïve, I hoped 
that my philosophy was one 
that 
coaches 
and 
parents 

across the country also shared.

However, upon returning 

home last month for Fall 
Break, 
I 
found 
quite 
the 

opposite: There was a growing 
crowd of children who were 
being trained and treated like 
professional athletes — which 
is, in my opinion, a dangerous 
prospect for the future of 
sports in this country.

Midtown 
Athletic 
Club, 

a notorious spot for aging 
parents to relive their glory 
days on the elliptical machine, 
had turned into a modern 
athletic sweatshop of sorts 
since my last visit. Unlike the 
“training” of my early years — 
dodgeball, steal the bacon and 
flag football — I witnessed 8- 
and 9-year-olds working out 
ferociously with trainers.

At one point, I overheard 

a trainer tell the parent of a 
young, 
slightly 
overweight 

boy that “he needs to be 
running 
every 
day 
to 
be 

ready for high school tennis,” 
despite the fact that this boy 
did not even seem old enough 
to understand algebra. Later 
in my workout, I was appalled 
to see a group of young girls 
running 
sprint 
“suicides,” 

an exercise I had previously 
only 
witnessed 
in 
highly 

competitive high school and 
college sports.

This 
growing 
trend 
to 

treat children as professional 
athletes and specialize their 
training 
has 
dangerous 

consequences. According to a 
recent survey conducted by the 
National Alliance for Youth 
Sports, 70 percent of children 
in the U.S. quit organized 
sports by the age of 13 because 
“it’s just not fun anymore.”

Though I stuck it out because 

of my love for the sport, 
baseball in my hometown of 
Deerfield, Ill., has a reputation 
for weeding out kids for that 
very reason. The increasing 
pressure coaches, parents and 
the community put on young 

baseball players has not only 
caused kids to transition to 
other sports like basketball or 
lacrosse, but has also prompted 
many to quit organized sports 
altogether. 
Overall, 
Little 

League baseball participation 
is down 20 percent since its 
peak in the early 2000s, a 
disappointing statistic to read 
for someone whose experience 
was almost entirely positive.

By professionalizing youth 

sports, many kids are no longer 
exposed to the benefits of 
organized athletics — learning 
the importance of teamwork, 
selflessness 
and 
discipline. 

And apart from minimizing 
the positive experiences kids 
like myself had playing sports, 
increasing professionalization 
ties into another negative trend 
in youth sports: specialization 
and overuse of the body. 

According 
to 
Dr. 
Albert 

Knuth, a pediatric orthopedic 
surgeon at Advocate Children’s 
Hospital just outside of Chicago, 

the United States sees 3.5 million 
youth sports injuries per year, 
and an estimated 50 percent of 
those come from overuse.

Where youth sports used to 

be focused on effort, learning 
core values and having fun, 
recent trends have seen kids 
training vigorously for one 
sport in order to pursue some 
sort of college or professional 
career — like the young boy 
I saw being overworked at 
Midtown last month.

The roots of specialization 

and overuse injuries lie largely 
in the prospect of college 
scholarships. Many parents, 
seeking a way to alleviate 
financial 
stress, 
put 
their 

children 
through 
intense 

training programs and hope to 
see Division 1 offers pile up.

Unfortunately, the reality 

is gloomy for almost all youth 
athletes. Only 6 percent of 
high 
school 
athletes 
will 

play in college, and only 1 
to 2 percent of those college 
athletes will see their efforts 
pan out professionally. Though 
not their intention, big-time 
athletic programs provide a 
largely unrealistic expectation 
for zealous parents seeking 
an opportunity for upward 
economic mobility. 

And it all comes down to 

running. Though I’m a fan of 
discipline and teaching work 
ethic, overworking kids to 
prepare them for a professional 
career completely defeats the 
purpose of youth sports.

I hope my efforts as a coach 

last summer signal a changing 
direction for the future of 
youth sports, and that others 
follow my lead. Though I know 
it won’t be the case for most 
if not all parents and coaches 
involved in organized sports, 
putting the “fun” back in 
youth athletics will positively 
impact the experience of many 
children and reduce their risk 
for injury in the future.

While the results might 

not be visible immediately, 
replacing foul poles and sprints 
with 
thoughtful 
post-game 

conversations will have the 
most positive impact on kids 
and their sports experience in 
the long term.

Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Friday, November 10, 2017

REBECCA LERNER

Managing Editor

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

EMMA KINERY

Editor in Chief

ANNA POLUMBO-LEVY 

and REBECCA TARNOPOL 

Editorial Page Editors

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. 

All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Put the fun back into sports

BEN CHARLSON | COLUMN

Are you going to hire me?

Carolyn Ayaub
Megan Burns

Samantha Goldstein

Emily Huhman
Jeremy Kaplan

Sarah Khan

Max Lubell

Lucas Maiman

Madeline Nowicki
Anna Polumbo-Levy 

Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury

Ali Safawi

Sarah Salman
Kevin Sweitzer

Rebecca Tarnopol

Stephanie Trierweiler

Ashley Zhang

Sami Matin is an LSA junior.

Is it OK to joke about death?

ELENA HUBBELL | COLUMN

I

’ve found that the humor 
exhibited by University 
of Michigan students is 

usually pretty dark. If, back 
in high school, I had joked 
about wanting to get hit by a 
car, my friends probably would 
have stared at me in horror 
and told a guidance counselor 
that I needed help. But here in 
Ann Arbor, the same joke will 
most likely be met by a chorus 
of “same,” “me too” or even, 
“Hey, college is expensive — go 
get that insurance money.”

Joking 
about 
death 
has 

become pretty commonplace 
on campus, and a way for a lot 
of students to express their 
frustration over never getting 
any sleep and always being 
under an intense amount of 
stress. And though I love dark 
humor — I’ve been known to 
casually joke about waiting for 
the sweet embrace of death — 
I also have conflicted feelings 
toward 
how 
University 

students casually talk about 
wanting to die.

For people who have actually 

experienced a friend or family 
member dying or who have 
had thoughts of suicide, these 
types of jokes can be perceived 
as insensitive, careless or even 
triggering. I know that after 
my father passed away, I had 
a hard time finding any jokes 
about death to be anything 
less than insulting, even if 
they were not at my or my 
family’s expense. I once broke 
into tears after a friend joked 
about wanting to die after they 
turned 30 so that they wouldn’t 
have to get old. Others may feel 
differently, but I know that 
for a while after experiencing 
a death in the family, hearing 
jokes about wanting to die 
made me uncomfortable and 
upset.

But I have to be honest — 

dark humor and making jokes 
about death can be a really 
good coping mechanism. With 
all the stress that we are under 
here at college, sometimes just 
being able to laugh with a friend 
about our mutual desire to no 
longer exist in this dimension 
can help make a long night 
of studying just a little more 
tolerable. I have yet to meet a 
fellow student who is sleeping 
enough or who feels content 
with their lives and because 
of this, it’s easy to understand 
why the atmosphere around 
campus would get a little grim.

Making wholesome and pure 

jokes when you’re running on 

two hours of sleep just isn’t 
going to cut it. Even I have 
found myself making jokes 
that a few years ago would 
have 
insulted 
me. 
College 

really puts a person through a 
lot mentally and emotionally, 
and dark jokes and humor 
are sometimes what a person 
needs to make it through.

This 
sensitive 
issue 
can 

sometimes 
be 
portrayed 
as 

black and white — people who 
make jokes about death should 
be more sensitive and stop, or, 
on the other side, people who 
are sensitive to jokes about 
death should just have a sense of 
humor. I believe that, concerning 

matters of death, a black and 
white approach will only create 
more tension and won’t allow for 
a nuanced discussion.

It’s 
true 
that 
making 

these 
kinds 
of 
jokes 
can 

lead to hurt emotions and 
misunderstanding for some, but 
I also believe that people should 
be allowed to cope with trauma 
in whatever way they feel is 
best. If that means making a 
few death jokes, I’m really not 
going to complain, as I’m going 
through the same stress and 
experiencing the same feelings 
of inadequacy as every other 
student on this campus.

Still, I believe that everyone 

should remain sensitive to the 
challenges 
that 
others 
may 

be going through, and I also 
think that some part of me will 
always find jokes about death 
distasteful. But what is also 
distasteful is a school system that 
prides itself in running students 
into the ground and creating a 
general atmosphere of stress. 
I believe that we should also 
remain sensitive to the students 
forced to deal with the distress 
that this University has put them 
through, and the unhealthy 
coping mechanisms that arise.

Students 
who 
normalize 

death should be villainized — 
in my opinion, it’s one of the 
healthier 
unhealthy 
coping 

mechanisms. 
I 
hope 
that 

students can begin to see how 
their jokes surrounding death 
and suicide can be hurtful 
and dismissive to some. But, I 
would also like to see a school 
system that actually tries to 
help students learn, and not 
just put them through mental 
and emotional stress in the 
name of competition. 

This is the fourth piece in the 
Survivors Speak series, which 

seeks to share the varied, 

first-person experiences of survivors 

of sexual assault. If you are a 

survivor and would like to submit 

to the series, please visit 

https://tinyurl.com/survivespeak 

for more information.

SAMI MATIN

I kept quiet for 
three years and 
moved on, but I 
remembered it.

Elena Hubbell can be reached at 

elepearl@umich.edu.

Ben Charlson can be reached at 

bencharl@umich.edu.

JOE IOVINO | CONTACT JOE AT JIOVINO@UMICH.EDU

Students who 

normalize 

death should be 

villainized.

I hope my efforts 

as a coach last 
summer signal 

a changing 

direction for the 
future of youth 

sports.

