Rollout Set for Statewide Sports Reform Report

Contact: Kay Hyatt at (207) 581-2761

ORONO–The highly anticipated report, Sports Done Right – A Call to Action on Behalf of Maine’s Student Athletes, will be unveiled Jan. 6, 2005 at the Augusta Civic Center. Superintendents, school board members, athletic directors, student-athletes and community recreation representatives are expected to attend the event, receive a copy of the report and learn how to use the recommendations to improve sports programs at Maine’s middle schools and high schools.

Expected to be a national model, Sports Done Right represents the work of a Select Panel of Maine citizens working collaboratively with the University of Maine and the Maine Center for Sport and Coaching. Through core principles and practices, as well as practices to avoid, the report describes healthy, well-conducted school sports and offers guidelines for developing and conducting such programs. Sports Done Right encourages schools and communities to determine locally if they wish to guide their sports programs according to this document and to sign on to the core principles and practices.

Maine school superintendents have been invited to send a team of representatives from their school district to the Jan. 6 event. During the morning sessions, Sports Done Right co-directors J. Duke Albanese and Robert A. Cobb, and other initiative leaders, will review the highlights of the report and discuss launching community conversations about conducting school sports programs that emphasize the importance of educating and shaping young student-athletes.

Funded by a congressional allocation, the goal of Sports Done Right is to shape a coaching and sports education initiative aligned with timely educational issues, the state’s learning standards and overall missions of schools.