Our son started skating at two years of age and playing hockey at five. As he got older, he also played competitive soccer, basketball and rugby, and he rowed in a quad that won several gold medals. At 12, diagnosed as an auditory learner, he found the frenetic yelling by his coaches a cause of anxiety, but he still loved sports. By the time he was 13, he'd tried out for and been selected to play on a hockey rep team.
It wasn't until age 16 that he was exposed to coaches who regularly used misogynist and homophobic slurs. Players reported being told to “grow some balls”. They were yelled at in games as “fucking soft” by an irate, threatening coach with a finger jabbing up in their face. One coach said to our son that another player “looked like a faggot”. Players said coaches called them “fucking pussies”, “fucking retards”, “embarrassments”, “pathetic” and so on.