The 5 Craziest Ways Adults Got Banned from Youth Sports

5 Well, That Wasn't Very Canadian of You

The handshake line is one of youth sports' most respected traditions. Sure, it may amount to little more than a conga line of limp-wristed hand slaps with a few half-hearted commendations of "good game" tossed in, but the ritual is meant to promote good sportsmanship and mutual respect for a game well played.

With that said, there will always be a bad egg or two who disrespect tradition and turn the handshake line into another opportunity to attack the opponent. One of the most egregious examples of handshake line abuse happened in the unlikeliest of places: Canada.

Aside from their terrifying ritual of mixing beer with Clamato and unfortunate taste in sports (that's you, hockey), Canadians are generally considered to be an otherwise cool bunch. It's those stereotypes that make what recently went down at a youth hockey match (game? Contest? Ice duel? Who cares?) in British Columbia so appalling.

After a tight contest that ended with a score of 5-4, a 13-year-old player for the Richmond Steel was making his way through the handshake line when he received something he wasn't expecting.

While shaking hands with all of the politeness that his nationality requires, a foot emerged from the periphery and tripped the young skater, knocking him to the ice along with some collateral damage in the form of a 10-year-old teammate.

Pretty crazy, but hey, kids will be kids, right? That's definitely true, but it's not supposed to carry on well into adulthood:

Did you see it? The poor sport doing the tripping was no freckle-faced young imp; it was team coach Martin Tremblay, and the tripping is just the cherry on top of an entire day spent fixated on destroying the morale of one young hockey player.

Prior to the tripping incident, Tremblay had incessantly taunted that same player from the bench during the game, at one point calling the young man "Twinkle Toes" and eventually forcing him to flee the ice in tears. Keep in mind, Tremblay was 48 years old at the time.

I ask you to keep that in mind because, incredibly, there's another detail that makes this story exponentially worse: Tremblay's team won that game.

That's right; all of that poor sportsmanship and child battery was somehow brought on by the exhilarating thrill of victory. I'd hate to see what would have become of that poor kid if Tremblay's team had lost.

In case you're wondering, Tremblay received 15 days in jail and one year of probation for his unprovoked attack. If that sentence doesn't seem harsh enough, take comfort in knowing that he still has to live in Canada when he gets out of jail. That might be a step up, but it's not a big one.

4 Just Like the Big Leagues Do It

Sometimes it feels like the NFL is a perpetual scandal machine. DUI, murder, assault -- and that's just players from New England. To be fair, most of the transgressions concern individual athletes and their rogue activities, but one of the biggest scandals in recent history involved an entire NFL team.

"Bountygate" brought the Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints to their knees after it was revealed that the team had implemented a bounty system that offered financial reward for knocking opponents out of play. As heinous as that sounds, it's not all that surprising coming from one of the most violent major sports. Things get a little harder to stomach when you replace the professional athletes with innocent children, though.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what the coaches of the Tustin Red Cobras, an Orange County, California, Pop Warner squad, did, offering incentives to their players for big hits against opposing teams. The athletes receiving the bounty were 10 and 11 years old. To their diabolical credit, the Tustin Red Cobras coaches purportedly began offering cash bonuses for knocking opponents out months before the New Orleans Saints scandal popularized the practice. Accuse them of being violent douchebags with no regard for the safety of our nation's youth, but don't you dare call them copycats.

While the NFL imposed harsh penalties against the Saints, including a one-year suspension of head coach Sean Payton and an indefinite suspension of defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, the governing body of Pop Warner wasn't as quick or decisive.

Despite the revelation that one of the targeted players, an 11-year-old running back, suffered a concussion after he was hit by a Red Cobras player (who later received payment for the hit), and testimony from several parents, the equipment manager, and an assistant coach stating that the 10- and 11-year-old children were promised cash for hard hits and knocking key players out of games, Pop Warner concluded that there was no bounty system.

However, in a seemingly contradictory move, Pop Warner decided to suspend the entire Tustin Red Cobras coaching staff anyway, cryptically basing their decision on one incident where a player "may have been rewarded for his performance," which Pop Warner Executive Director Jon Butler likened to going for ice cream after a game, which is probably accurate, provided your parents only buy you ice cream after you've successfully broken the leg of a neighborhood kid they don't like.

3 Dad, You're Embarrassing Me (and Also Breaking the Law)

There is nothing more mortifying to a teenage girl and nothing creepier to watch than a dad who's overly invested in his daughter's extracurricular activities. The creep factor went into overdrive when Massachusetts dad Joseph Cordes boosted his helicopter parenting to Black Hawk ops levels at a high school ice hockey game.

During a tournament match between his daughter's team, Winthop, and a team called Medway/Ashland, Cordes decided to lend a little 6th Man help from his seat in the stands. Whenever the action approached the Medway/Ashland goalie, Cordes aimed a green laser pointer directly at the unsuspecting athlete's eyes.

His efforts to sabotage the game were exposed when the goalie complained. Cordes was ejected from the venue, but unfortunately for Medway/Ashland, the damage was done. They went on to lose to Winthrop 3-1.

Naturally, Medway/Ashland parents called foul and asked that the game be replayed, but the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA), the state's governing body for high school sports, upheld the Winthrop win on the grounds that sometimes there's going to be a laser pointer in your eyes when you're tending goal -- deal with it, missy.

Unlike the MIAA, the law wasn't as dismissive of Cordes' actions -- he was charged with disturbing the peace as a result of the incident. To his credit, Cordes admits that he acted "like a complete jerk" and humiliated his daughter.

And you just know there's a good kitty at home that missed that laser pointer while he was out using it to scorch female hockey player retina. Where's that apology?

There is a moral to this story, though. Teens, the next time your dad is acting totally lame in front of your friends, just remember it could be much worse. At least he's not trying to blind anyone.

2 Busting Up a Pint-Size Gambling Ring

From Super Bowl pools to March Madness brackets, putting money on sports is generally considered harmless fun, but that's not always the case. Take the Fort Lauderdale Hurricanes, for example. You've heard of them, right? Of course not, because they're a Pee Wee League football team.

You'd think the wagering action surrounding a bunch of kids who can barely be trusted to wipe their noses or tie their own shoes would be minimal. After all, if they can't handle basic life functions, they probably won't fare any better with play-action passes.

That was of no concern to Brandon Bivins. He was the coach of the Hurricanes. He also billed himself as the team "president," because what youth sports team doesn't have one of those? Apparently the job doesn't pay nearly as well as the title implies, because Bivins supplemented his income by setting up a massive gambling ring that took wagers on the outcome of the same Pee Wee League games he was coaching.

These weren't minor bets, either. An 18-month investigation nicknamed Operation Dirty Play conducted by the South Florida sheriff's department uncovered evidence of bets as high as $20,000 on some games. Bets for the championship game reached $100,000. You can see lots of that cash changing hands in this video:

As if gambling on youth games wasn't bad enough, it turns out most of those arrested also happened to be league coaches.

Oh, and convicted felons! Brandon Bivins alone had eight felony convictions for offenses ranging from assault to cocaine possession prior to taking on the responsibility of molding the running backs and defensive ends of the future. Of the 10 people arrested in connection with the ring, only three had no prior convictions.

Betting on sports is usually as close as you can get to a victimless crime, but when a team of criminals start depending on the athletic prowess of children to make them money, it's probably in your best interest to keep your gambling activity limited to the office knockout pool.

1 Does Coaching Girls' Basketball Make You a Sexpert?

One of the cool things about coaching is that you get to pass along your skills and impart world-weary knowledge to a new generation of athletes. Most coaches will tell you that's only half the story. There's also all the valuable life lessons you gain by working with your young charges. If that's the case, certainly no one's ever claimed to have learned more than Rich Township Central High School girls' basketball coach Bryan Craig.

Craig, who also worked as the school's guidance counselor, penned a sex self-help book not at all creepily titled It's Her Fault, based on insight culled from his close proximity to female high school athletes.

If you take a "Look Inside" over at Amazon, where the book is currently for sale, Craig uses the foreword to explain where some of his expertise comes from:

"I coach girls basketball, work in an office where I am the only male counselor, and am responsible for roughly 425 high school students a year, about half of whom are females. Suffice it to say, I have spent a considerable amount of time around, and with, the fairer sex."

Sure, but what exactly does a lifetime of coaching girls' basketball teach you about sex? Well, there's a section about how vaginal warmth correlates with a female's race and ethnicity. That's a conversation starter you likely won't see in a sex book that's not written by a high school basketball coach. So that's a selling point. There's also a section on why "Latin women have more children."

The most terrifying moment for parents, though, comes in the form of this helpful advice:

"The easiest kill for a man is through the young lady with low self-esteem."

That's your high school guidance counselor and girls' basketball coach, ladies and gentlemen.

In addition to his general theories, Craig is not shy about revealing his own vulnerabilities: "Even though I feel I'm beyond the highest caliber of men, I still have a weakness for cleavage and camel toe." He's so sensitive!

If there's any good news for Craig, it's that despite receiving reviews that describe the book as "Vile, sexist, almost amusingly ridiculous trash" and "Very poorly written and highly inflammatory," his Amazon rating is a fairly decent two-and-a-half stars.

On the unfortunate flip side of that good news, the school board was less impressed with his turn as an author, admonishing him for his lack of good judgment and professionalism before firing him from his coaching and guidance counselor positions.

So is that the last we'll hear of the self-proclaimed sexpert? His attorney claims that Craig's First Amendment rights were violated and has filed a million-dollar lawsuit against the school district over his dismissal. If that doesn't work, he can always start working on a sequel.

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