By Anfal Hanif
The room gets quiet. For Terry Amadio, that is when he knows his players are listening.
Football practices are rarely quiet. There are drills to run, plays to learn and teammates constantly talking, joking and competing. But when the coach of St. Mark Catholic High School’s junior football team starts talking about relationships, consent, respect or what it means to step in when something is wrong, the energy changes.
“You could see that when a room gets really quiet, the boys are thinking,” Amadio says. “They might be thinking about themselves, and they might be thinking about their friend on the team.”
After more than two decades of coaching football at St. Mark, and raising children of his own, Amadio has realized that those moments can matter as much as anything on the field. His philosophy is simple.
“Our motto is become a gentleman first, and a good football player second,” Amadio underlines.
That pursuit has recently been furthered by Coaching Boys into Men – a young program locally that encourages conversations about respect, healthy relationships, consent, accountability and gender-based violence within teenage boys’ sports teams.
Originally developed in the U.S., CBIM has spread to six countries and has endorsement from the United Nations. In Canada, it first arrived in Hamilton and is now amid its second year in Ottawa.
With funding from the Ontario government, community and school sports teams can take part in CBIM for free, while coaches are paid for their time to get trained to deliver the program.
Integrated within team practice or meeting time, CBIM uses conversation cards to give coaches, students and other participants questions, key points and examples to prompt discussions.
“Coaching Boys into Men gave me the courage to have these conversations with the boys,” Amadio highlights.
The program is facilitated locally by Interval House Ottawa, the capital’s largest gender-based violence shelter. Interval House sees CBIM as an opportunity help shift attitudes and action, in hopes of decreasing the current count of one in three Canadian youth with dating experience reporting that they experienced or perpetrated dating violence in the previous year.
Program creators recognized that coaches are uniquely positioned to influence behaviours since they are often trusted mentors.
“The goal of the program is to use the leverage that coaches have with their athletes to be able to have conversations around gender-based violence,” explains Ottawa CBIM public educator Kyle Duperron-Haynes. “Sport can be an avenue for leadership and positive role models and great outcomes.
“It can also be an avenue that has enabled certain behaviours to become normalized.”
CBIM offers the opportunity to learn “the skills to be good leaders on and off the field,” he adds, while noting it can also open conversations that young people may not otherwise have at home.
Some parents have told Duperron-Haynes their children became more willing to communicate and discuss difficult topics after participating in the program, and that they’ve become more confident at school.
Amadio was especially proud when his six team captains held a school assembly for all the Grade 9 to 11 classes and pledged to be better leaders in ending all violence in society.
A number of those CBIM ambassadors will take to the field on Tuesday afternoon in search of St. Mark’s second consecutive senior football city crown at Carleton University. They’ll face an unexpected challenger in the St. Mother Teresa Titans, who upset unbeaten St. Joseph 21-16 in the semi-finals. The Lions’ only loss of the season came against St. Joe’s; their most recent of seven wins a 31-14 victory over Ashbury on Thursday in the semis.
Amadio sees a link between his team’s CBIM involvement and its success on the gridiron, thanks to the connections it’s helped create.
“The more we did the talks, the boys got comfortable with having really awkward conversations,” Amadio recalls. “Then they became closer.”
Amadio noticed less blaming when players made mistakes and more support between teammates.
“The way the 10th graders treated the Grade 9s was off,” he continues. “They seemed like more of a team.”
At St. Mark, players and parents sign a behaviour agreement at the start of the season, although Amadio knows that actions are more important than a signature.
“If the kids slip up or you do overhear it, then you address it right away – it’s not going to be tolerated,” indicates Amadio, who reiterates to his players that any concerns brought to him will be taken seriously. “Eventually, we didn’t have to say ‘remember Coaching Boys into Men’ when we talked about supporting each other. It was just happening.”
The ultimate test, however, was what happens when the coach leaves?
Duperron-Haynes remembers one athlete telling him that a situation at a weekend party mirrored something they had discussed during program sessions.
“If it wasn’t for that, I probably wouldn’t have made the same choice,” the athlete told him.
A message that Amadio shares with his players is that “the guilt that you feel for not doing something might haunt you.”
He encourages his players to speak up when they hear a harmful comment, see a boundary crossed or witness disrespect. He talks to his players about using their strength for good, standing up for people who cannot stand up for themselves, being leaders in their classrooms and communities, developing a strong work ethic, and taking responsibility for their actions.
It’s all part of redefining what it means to be a real man.
“What used to be OK when I was a kid is no longer allowed,” signals Amadio. “If we are teaching boys to be good men, then everyone wins.”
Amadio is grateful to have had excellent coaches when he was growing up, which helped inspire him to give back and coach young people in his school and community. He loves when former players he’s coached return as adults and reflect on the impact past lessons had in their lives.
“You plant the seed, but you’re not always going to enjoy the shade of the tree,” Amadio smiles. “Sometimes it’ll take 10 years for it to happen.”
CBIM is similarly spreading. Through the local English public and Catholic school boards alone, more than 100 teachers were trained to deliver the program within its first year in Ottawa.
Many other sports have participated, including volleyball, basketball, baseball, wrestling and hockey.
Among CBIM partners are Hockey Eastern Ontario, the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees and Carleton University Ravens football programs, and the Ottawa Redblacks, who are involved in a related initiative called Coaching Leadership, Equity, and Respect (CLEAR) – adapted for older age groups and co-ed teams.
For Interval House, a chief objective is ensuring athletes understand the powerful role they can play in creating change.
“Men can be part of the solution, not part of the problem,” Duperron-Haynes underlines. “Everyone deserves respect, and there’s no exceptions to that.”
This article is part of the Ottawa Sports Pages’ Inclusion in Sport series. Read more about local sport inclusion initiatives at: OttawaSportsPages.ca/Ottawa-Sports-Pages-Inclusion-In-Sport-Series/.