Legal troubles for family of infamous hockey dad

The story of Thomas Junta is a sad one that over the years has grown even sadder. In 2002, Junta was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of a Massachusetts hockey dad. Junta and the victim, Michael Costin, got into a scuffle at a rink after their sons had mixed it up on the ice. They had words. They traded blows. And when it was over, Costin was dead, probably from a blow (or multiple blows) to the vertebral artery in his neck. Junta served about eight years in prison before his release six months ago.

Now Junta's son is in trouble. This week, the Boston Globe reports that Quinlan Junta, 21, was arrested and charged after a violent home invasion. According to the Globe the younger Junta and a friend stand accused of breaking into an apartment at gunpoint and beating up a 19-year-old who lived there with his mother. Then they allegedly robbed the victims of $800.

Junta and his alleged accomplice are charged with home invasion, armed robbery, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, intimidation of a witness, and conspiracy to commit a crime.

At some point, this ceases to be a cautionary tale about youth sports mania and becomes one about a highly dysfunctional American family. I think we're there.

Thanks Marty Mazzone.

"We see kids hurt before they become athletes"

Suddenly - and encouragingly - overuse sports injuries are getting a lot of attention this month in some prominent publications.

James Andrews gets much of the credit. Two articles this week focus on the surgeon's new initiative Stop Sports Injuries. Andrews sees a startling number of kids with overuse injuries in his clinic in Birmingham. This year, as president of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, he nudged the surgeons' organization into backing STOP.

The STOP program launched in April - with Andrews doing a round of interviews and the unveiling of an impressive Web site. More stuff is coming, including - if Andrews can find the millions in funding that he seeks - a National Youth Sports Day when sports docs would fan out to youth leagues around the country preaching about the dangers of starting too soon and doing too much.

Already, Andrews has lined up an A-list of STOP spokespeople, friends and ex-patients, including Charles Barkley, Jack Nicklaus, Terry Bradshaw, Bo Jackson, and John Smoltz, among them.

The Boston Globe ran this article Thursday.

I wrote a piece for Sports Illustrated in the current issue (June 7). In it, Andrews says: "I don't think epidemic is too strong a word. We're seeing kids hurt before they even have a chance to become athletes."

Education is a helpful thing, no doubt. What Andrews is doing - and what he has talked his star patients into assisting with - is fabulous. The key will be to persuade those of us with big ambitions for our kids that we're not helping them reach their potential as athletes. If anything, the opposite is true. Tough being a hot-shot travel team player with a cast on your leg or arm in a sling