We've got the AZ State Outdoor Championships for archery going on this weekend. Overall our parents are really great, but there are times like today when I really wonder why I'm involved in coaching and judging. This is an overall state championship with all divisions and ages with 8 year olds and 80 year olds, so it's not just a youth tournament.

Today was qualifications to set up the brackets for the elimination brackets tomorrow. One of our new recurve archers who is 13 and shooting in only his second tournament and first outdoor tournament had a bounce out. His arrow hit the target but bounced back and did not stick. He should've called a judge to resolve the situation, instead he kept shooting. Typically a judge will inspect the target when arrows are pulled and look for any unmarked holes. If there is an unmarked hole, the archer typically gets the points for it.

He and his bale mates went up to score and pull arrows. His bale mates identified the unmarked hole and offered to score the points for it. Very noble of them but not in conformance to the rules. One of the line judges picked up his arrow from the ground, returned to the shooting line and called all members of the bale up. She explained what the proper procedure was and that they would have to revise their scorecards to show a miss since only 5 arrows were in scoring position on the target. It was a teachable moment that hopefully our archer will remember and not make the same mistake again.

Well, the wasn't good enough for the parent of another club. He yelled out, "He lied on his scorecard, he needs to be disqualified!"

I countered with, "Dude? Really? He's a 13 year old kid shooting in only his second tournament! A mistake was made, direction given by a judge and the situation has been corrected. What's the issue?"

"He lied on his scorecard! There's no room in archery for cheaters!"

"Really? There's no room in archery for assholes either, and yet you're here, mellow out already."

With that he sat back down and mellowed some. But he would still yell out directions to his son and archers on his team, some of which were in direct conflict with the rules of USA Archery. As coaches we're usually up and down the line helping out are archers that need it. In this case we actually had to station a coach there for the duration of the tournament just to make sure our archers on that section of the line were not interfered with or another archer didn't do anything else outside of the rules.

This is why I don't do pediatric nursing. I love working with kids, I just can't deal with dumb ass parents.

I have been coaching youth sports for 10 years now and coached baseball, football and archery. I was a head coach once. Never ever again. I love being an assistant because I never talk to the parents at all. I have had parents walk up to me at a store and say hello and I have no clue who they are unless they have their kid with them.

When I was the head coach I lead off my very first parent meeting by telling them that I was there for the kids and not to satisfy any desires of the parents to live vicariously through their kids.

I love coaching kids but I hate talking to adults.

"Kids sports are fun until the parents get involved".

Been coaching soccer for 10 years, head coach for the past 6. Coached deck hockey for a few seasons, until I made my kids pick one sport or the other. I always knew I would have an expiration date, and it's fairly close. My soccer kids will be able to play on local school teams shortly. I've always promoted fun over winning, but winning will be the next step in youth sports psychology.

I don't think parents understand the time and commitment coaches put into their teams. It's basically a year round part time job (minus a paycheck), even though we only have a fall and spring season. There are meetings to attend, fundraising to be done, fields to be taken care of, etc... I will give an even bigger thank you to the board of directors who run our local club. It is a full time job. I've only had a few times where I've told a parent if they think they can do a better job, feel free to sign up. Their response is "I wish I had the time". No shit, me too. I guess I've been blessed because the majority of parents understand what my "role" is at this point in their kids life. High School is the next step, but it's a paid position, and I won't have the time...

I'll give myself a pat on the back. We've had great seasons, we've had horrible seasons, but the kids in my age group always come back. This year I had 17 "tweenagers" sign up to play in my age division. That was pretty much twice what any other team in our club had. So we have to shuffle kids around to roster other teams who didn't have the numbers. I ended up with 15 kids, but had to move my team up an age bracket. We are undefeated this year, the kids are having fun, and the parents for the most part like me.

And yes, I've had kids I've known for the majority of their lives, but have never met one of their parents.

That situation is mild. Go watch a club soccer tournament here in the northeast some time. I broke up a near fist fight at the last one between two dads from opposing teams. And these are soccer games between 9 year olds. One team in our soccer club was banned from a tournament in PA last year because their parents were so out of control. At the time their kids were 7 years old.

There was a sand soccer tournament not long ago in Virginia where a Dad charged the field and beat up a teenager who fouled his son. Think about that for a second!

I hate everything about youth sports, but I know it's good for my kids and they love playing so I suck it up for them.

AirmanJeff,

Funny you mention PA, I live there. I know exactly of which you speak.

One high school banned all parents from their children's soccer games for an entire year.

Two years ago, we had some issues on the sidelines between parents from opposite teams. It started to escalate, until the point that threats were made. One of the parents said, "you want to take it out to the parking lot?" The guy was clueless that our field shares the parking lot with our local police department, event though there were LEO cars parked there. After that I always mention do not sit directly at the mid-field line, put a buffer between our parents and the other team. And if things seem to get out of control, go knock on the Police Dept's door.

Parents in Sports. Don't get me started. I could spend the entire day talking about the parents when I taught Judo for 15 years.

Around here the parents aren’t the worst. It’s all the cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and mommas current boyfriends who tend to start real trouble. Every physical incident I know of in the leagues involve one of the above.

quote:

Originally posted by ASKSmith:
AirmanJeff,

Funny you mention PA, I live there. I know exactly of which you speak.

One high school banned all parents from their children's soccer games for an entire year.

Two years ago, we had some issues on the sidelines between parents from opposite teams. It started to escalate, until the point that threats were made. One of the parents said, "you want to take it out to the parking lot?" The guy was clueless that our field shares the parking lot with our local police department, event though there were LEO cars parked there. After that I always mention do not sit directly at the mid-field line, put a buffer between our parents and the other team. And if things seem to get out of control, go knock on the Police Dept's door.

I think it's something in the water around here (and north) that makes these people get so crazy. It's weird because soccer isn't an inherently physical sport but parents seem to want to make it physical, much more so than in other sports from what I have noticed!

I have seen many of those "take it to the parking lot" arguments, MANY. But never one with a police department parking lot

It does get crazy out there and the worst thing about is, What are they teaching their kids about sports?
What are they teaching their kids about life?

I went to a midget football game a long while back. I had no kids in that game, went as a spectator.
A penalty flag was thrown for a penalty which everyone saw. The team with the ball tried a pass that was intercepted, when the kid who intercepted it ran it back, the other team did not try to tackle him because they saw the flag....no whistle.
That was the go ahead score and the game ended.

The parents of the losing team trapped the referees with a fence to their back at the end of the game and were going to beat the tar out of them. They were screaming obscenities at them and threatening them.

I went in and broke it up and asked the parents what they were teaching their kids.
They yelled "to stick up for themselves".

Just plain stupid. I have been at games that it was plain to see that the refs were purely prejudiced.But still, it is just a game, not life and death.

Was recently at a youth football game. The parents from ‘our’ side were going crazy because the other team had a kid who could really tackle...hard.

It got verbal between a couple of dads (in front of every one of course).

The only part that matters:
Dad A: Overweight white guy talking the most trash...because there were lots of other overweight white guys in the stands backing him up.

Dad B: “Fit” black dude who was the parent of the kid who could tackle.

Dad A takes it too far and says, “Hey, you want to take this to the parking lot?”

Dad B rips off his shirt and starts MARCHING to the parking lot.

Note to self, never ask a dude to ‘the parking lot’ if he looks like he has spent a lOT of time in the parking lot.

LOL

Sadly no fight took place, but I doubt it would have lasted very long.

Football, Kickyball (soccer), whatever...if you want to really see some bat-shit crazy parents, just attend a cheerleading competition. NOTHING compares to the rabid, estrogen-spiking moms that are living their dreams through their daughters. Word.

I got conned into coaching my son's soccer team when the coach bailed right before the season began.

The worst part for me was parents dropping off their kids and heading to the mall or somewhere. Practice or the game would be over and the parents were no shows. I certainly could not leave the kid alone at the field, so I would have to sit there and wait until they meandered back.

If it only happened once or twice, no big deal. But, it happened almost every week. Free babysitting.

quote:

Originally posted by CoinRoller:
Football, Kickyball (soccer), whatever...if you want to really see some bat-shit crazy parents, just attend a cheerleading competition. NOTHING compares to the rabid, estrogen-spiking moms that are living their dreams through their daughters. Word.

Lol. Yeah my niece is in competitive cheer and the parents are waaaaaay over the top.

quote:

Originally posted by CoolRich59:
I got conned into coaching my son's soccer team when the coach bailed right before the season began.

The worst part for me was parents dropping off their kids and heading to the mall or somewhere. Practice or the game would be over and the parents were no shows. I certainly could not leave the kid alone at the field, so I would have to sit there and wait until they meandered back.

If it only happened once or twice, no big deal. But, it happened almost every week. Free babysitting.

Yeah that was another thing I addressed in my very first parent meeting. Thankfully with football most parents have some concern about injury so at least one parent was almost always there. I had to stay a couple times but it was rare.

Funny thing with these sports is the parents are living vicariously through their children, because the parents were physically inept as kids or are just tubs of lard.

So funny to see these stupid parents run after little Johnny and Susie, wiping their asses and paying for weekends away, thinking that their kids will be the next Tiger Woods.

And most of them are in horribly unhappy marriages, were these youth sports are the only thing that they have in life.

Pretty fracking sad.

My son-in-law was a pro baseball pitcher. Now he coaches 3 “elite” baseball teams of 11-14 year olds. Every time I see him, his cell phone constantly rings from some parent who is pissed because little Johnny didn’t get enough playing time, and “he’s paying big dollars” for Johnny to play. Oh yeah, and he has to put up with the fart jokes and other antics from pre-pubescent boys. Man, he has endless patience.