Concern with youth coaches?
With the child sex abuse allegations against a former coach at Penn State University in the headlines we wondered how far reaching the impact of this difficult story might be. In a Poll Position national scientific telephone survey we asked, in light of these allegations against the former Penn State coach, what is your level of concern over the relationship between coaches and young children in all sports? Poll results showed 42% telling us you are very concerned, 33% saying somewhat concerned, and 21% not concerned at all. That is a combined total of 75% showing some level of concern over the relationship between a youth coach and a child.
The Penn State scandal has former longtime football coach Jerry Sandusky facing 40 counts of child sexual abuse or molestation against 8 young boys. It has led to the firing of legendary football coach Joe Paterno and the president of Penn State University for what they knew, and did not do when at least one case of alleged abuse was brought to their attention.
Women expressed the most concern in total off all the categories questioned with 41% very concerned, 40% somewhat concerned and 15% not concerned at all. That adds up to a total of 81% of women expressing some concern over the relationship between youth coaches and children. Among men, 43% were very concerned, 26% somewhat concerned and 27% saying they are not concerned at all.
In our poll, young people in the 18-29 year old age group, had the highest number for those very concerned with 55% opting for that choice, 18% were somewhat concerned and 27% were not concerned at all.
Whites and African-Americans have different views on the topic. Of whites, 43% are very concerned, 36% are somewhat concerned and 17% are not concerned at all. That adds up to 79% of whites having at least some concern over the relationship between coaches and young people. African-Americans were less concerned than whites with 35% saying they are very concerned, 24% somewhat concerned and 40% not concerned at all. That adds up to 59% of African-Americans expressing some concern over the relationship between youth coaches and young children.
Poll Position’s scientific telephone survey of 1,184 registered voters nationwide was conducted November 10, 2011 and has a margin of error of ±3%. Poll results are weighted to be a representative sampling of all American adults.
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The online companion poll in which you can vote provides unscientific results, meaning it’s a tally of participating Poll Position users, not a nationally representative sampling.
Poll Position is committed to transparency and upholding the highest professional standards in its polling, explaining why we provide you with the crosstabs of our scientific polls. Crosstabs provide a breakdown of survey participants by age, race, gender, and political affiliation. Here are the crosstabs for this poll: Poll Position Crosstabs-Coaches and young children
You can learn more about our polling methodology here.
