Douglas E. Abrams, a University of Missouri law professor, coached youth hockey for 42 years. Now he speaks and writes about youth sports in law journal articles, book chapters, newspaper editorials, and blog columns. His “Youth Sports Hero of the Month” column appears regularly on MomsTEAM.com.

With royalties from his four books about family law and juvenile law, he created Happiness for Health, a permanent endowment that provides toys, stuffed animals, games, and parties for the sick and injured patients at the University of Missouri Children’s Hospital. He serves on the hospital’s Advisory Board.

He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Missouri Division of Youth Services, one of the nation's foremost juvenile justice treatment agencies. He serves on the Missouri Juvenile Justice Association’s board of directors. On the Missouri Bar’s Children and the Law Commission, he wrote several pediatric health and safety statutes. He is a Fellow of the Missouri Bar Foundation, which improves the law through education, public service, and charitable initiatives.

In 1994, Prof. Abrams received the Meritorious Service to the Children of America Award, presented by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. In 2011, he received the Missouri Bar's Distinguished Service Award for longtime contributions to the administration of justice. In 2013, he received USA Hockey’s Excellence in Safety Award.

Prof. Abrams played a major role in creating mid-Missouri’s organized youth hockey teams beginning in 1991.  During his 11 years as the new mid-Missouri youth hockey association’s first president, enrollment grew from 25 players to 185 by assuring equal opportunity, providing need-based scholarships, and stressing citizenship education. His teams’ community service projects won national, state and local recognition; a local newspaper called one team “a philanthropic organization on skates.”

A goaltender, Phi Beta Kappa member, and summa cum laude graduate at Wesleyan University before attending Columbia Law School, Prof. Abrams set the Eastern College Athletic Conference Division III record for most saves in a game (64). The New Hampshire Union Leader has called him “one of the people who help serve as the conscience for anyone involved in youth sports,” and “a nationally known authority on youth sports.”