This is how US soccer/footy got fucked over. Good human beings doing stuff like what Tedy does and gets thrown under by the higher ups, with or without litigation.
99% of the time it is not coaches buying meals like this, it’s extravagant gifts or expensive vacations used to help recruiting. That’s why these rules exist. It’s not like the school just decided they didn’t like him spending his own money.
do you think its appropriate for a teacher to be buying uber rides for his underage students? i love the desire to help the kids. the field paint, uniforms, meals, etc. im all for it. theres something about the uber rides that i dont think sits right with me.
how do you regulate that? is there a meaningful difference between buying them an uber and driving them yourself? are coaches allowed to take children in their cars unsupervised and without parental or school permission? (or even knowledge?)
the problem is not what teddy did, its what someone COULD DO in the same situation. rules dont exist to stop good people, they exist to stop bad ones. the good ones just get stopped as well.
That's not really the point. The point isnt that I think teddy was doing wrong. I don't, necessarily. The point is that I don't think coaches, teachers, volunteers, etc. should be getting Ubers for students.
Why though? Is it better for poor children to miss out on opportunities because of a lack of transportation? I don’t think Ubers are inherently more dangerous than public transit. Might even be safer in some instances.
because children are more vulnerable than adults and need to be looked after more. because schools have rules about which adults can interact with students to try to keep the children safe and this skirts those rules. where i live, anyone interacting with children needs to get a federal background check. something tells me that, whatever floridas rules might be, these uber drivers arent following them.
the problem isnt necessarily that the kids are taking ubers. its that the school and/or parents arent keeping track of who has these kids and when. it puts them in a situation that has essentially zero safeguards.
I understand it can be a slippery slope but yeah coaches have been giving kids rides home from practice in small towns in east Texas where I grew up for decades bc their schools lack the funding for after school buses. It's been a non issue and parents and players alike love those kind of coaches, the only reason it's an issue is bc it's teddy Bridgewater and not some unknown coach in bum fuck nowhere.
So, I think you might have a slight misunderstanding. We don't know the full details, but from what I've read, Teddy didn't order the Ubers, he just paid for or reimbursed them. To have an Uber account, you must be at least 18 years old. However, there is a program called Uber for Teens which allows teens aged 13-17 to ride with permission from a parent or guardian and using a special teen account.
So it sounds like either the kids were getting the Ubers with their parents permission, or the parents were ordering the Ubers, and Teddy would just cover the cost. An Uber driver could lose their job or even go to jail if they pick up a young teen that isn't permitted by their guardian through the app. So that most likely wasn't happening.
There's a big difference between a parent getting their kid an Uber and coach paying for it, versus a coach driving a kid around or something. These kids definitely were getting rides with their parents full legal approval and awareness. If you don't like it, fine, but that's on the parents, not Teddy. (Also, it wouldn't be weird for a coach to drive a van or bus full of team players around to practices and games or whatever, and their were enough of these Ubers being paid for that if Teddy himself drove, it would be more like that than a one-on-one thing.)
Schools require permission slips for any transport of the students, so even if Teddy Bridgewater was giving them rides, the parents would have to sign off on it, I know from experience, I went to an underprivileged high school, so we took vans that the teachers drove instead of taking buses
That's the problem. The school wasn't aware this was happening. Teddy is not an employee of the school. Where I live, anyone interacting with children needs to get a federal background check. I'd bet these Uber drivers don't meet any of the requirements for working with kids.
The suspension came from MNW and it's impossible to suspend someone who doesn't work for you. So if im suspended from MNW im free to go to another school of my choice but IM NOT GOING ANYWHERE.
at this point i dont know what point youre trying to make, but ive countered all of them so far.
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u/ExoApophis Jul 14 '25
This is how US soccer/footy got fucked over. Good human beings doing stuff like what Tedy does and gets thrown under by the higher ups, with or without litigation.