Long story short, after a one point win over my kids’ team last night, a mother for the winning team stood and turned to us and screamed out “Take that you piece of shit!” to a father sitting next to me. He had been cheering on our team during the game but had never been rude or derogatory to anyone. We were shocked.

Needless to say, I talked with the head coach afterwords. Apparently, several members of their team and their parents were ejected last year during the state playoffs for similar behavior. Wow! It’s only a game. Our coach told us our school will be filing a formal complaint with the state high school athletic association on Monday. Who knows what they will do but after last year, it would be interesting to see if they ban all their fans or at least her from anymore games this year.

Oh yea, it was a double header and we won the next game which leaves us still on top of the region standings. Hehehe.

Are you in Texas?

Utah.

Utah. That is unusual. When my kids played high school sports this happened from time to time. I ignored it. Usually alcohol was involved. Speaks to her upbringing. Full set of teeth???

Parents are the worst part of youth/high school sports. I got to see it first hand when I coached my son’s teams. Parents are also the reason I stopped coaching.

I've seen signs not only at high school sports complexes, but also on military bases that boil down to A)It's a game B) the Players are the ones playing it C) spectators should behave.

My son's high school had a dad at the game that I was actually concerned with his health. By the half his face was red and veins popping from screaming at the field for what ever he saw as a wrong.

I saw it this past spring with my 7 year old son at coach pitch baseball.

Seems like there’s always got to be that one douchebag parent somewhere at every game.

This guy from the other team was really being loud and aggressive and then started berating and shouting at the coaches when his kid got called out and the kid ran off the field crying. He’s just being really overly loud and obnoxious and causing a scene.

My poor mother-in-law is sitting with us and says rather quietly “oh grow up”, this guy hears it and jumps up, puffs up his chest and starts advancing toward her screaming “THAT’S ENOUGH OF YOUR BULLSHIT, LADY!”

OK, calm the hell down dude. first of all, it’s seven year old kids here, it’s not the major leagues, and your kid isn’t even very good.

I started to get up to put myself between them to stop a situation if it got to that, my mother-in-law immediately packed up and left.

The guy is an asshole, I’ve heard him and his dad sitting there at other games talking shit about our team about how bad the kids are on our team.

Really? It’s just little kids figuring it all out.

I’ve saw this kind of behavior when my son was on a soccer traveling team.

On the plus side, I was at my grandson’s soccer game earlier this year and the parents were cheering kids on both sides when they made a good play.

They also had a sign posted at the entrance to the park:
PLEASE REMEMBER:
1. THESE ARE KIDS.
2. THIS IS A GAME.
3. THE COACHES ARE VOLUNTEERS.
4. THE REFEREES ARE HUMAN.
5. THIS IS NOT THE WORLD CUP.

Not condoning that behavior, but guess the "cheering" that the guy next to you was doing probably had some affect on her response. Just a guess. People can suck for sure.

No alcohol and normal looking group of parents.

Just to add, baseball scores are "runs." Basketball, football, and other sports where more than "1" can be tallied are points.

(Hockey, water polo, soccer, etc are goals)

Sorry, it’s a nit pick of mine.

It’s always a parent pulling this stuff.

I attended my kid's elementary school basketball game. 7 to 5 was considered a high scoring event. Dad across the court was yelling at the referee for not calling fouls. If he had called them all, there would have been nothing but free throws. Finally, I told the guy to shut up and let the kids play.

At the quarter break, he comes storming across the court with another guy right behind him.

Super, I though, I'm going to get in a fight with two irate parents. As the first guy approached, I said that ref is a volunteer, leave him alone.

The second guy slaps the first one on the back and says yeah, that's my son in stripes, leave him alone.

First guy slinks back across the court and I heave a sigh of relief.

I saw atrocitus behavior by parents and that was 20 years ago. I assume it is worse these days.

quote:

Originally posted by birddog1:
Parents are the worst part of youth/high school sports. I got to see it first hand when I coached my son’s teams.

Yup. I’ve spent over a decade coaching baseball, softball, football and archery. Archery is the only sport I coach that I’ll actually talk to the parents. For the most part archery parents are awesome and even the worst ones are pretty mild compared to the other sports.

After my first season as a head coach I stated the season by addressing the parents of baseball, football and softball teams telling them who I am and what I expect, then telling them that any concerns or complaints they have will need to be addressed to either a designated assistant coach or the team mom, depending on who I had. After that first speech I almost never spoke to the parents.

quote:

Originally posted by birddog1:
Parents are the worst part of youth/high school sports. I got to see it first hand when I coached my son’s teams. Parents are also the reason I stopped coaching.

Agreed.

In my youth, I umpired baseball. It was a GREAT gig for a teenage kid. I started it at 11, and kept going until I was about 22. (back in the mid 90's min wage was 5.15/hr and I could ump a 2 hour game and make 15 bucks, or 7.50/hr even at 15 years old. I couldn't legally work at a fast food place and even if i could, I made about 2.50/hr MORE umping....

At 14, I quit playing baseball (which I loved doing) so I could umpire more. My choices were to Ump on Mon/Wed (2 games a night each) and play Tues/Thurs (play either 1 game or 2 games per week) OR I could Umpire 2 games each night, Monday through Friday, and then possibly make up games on Saturday. And then the tournaments, where you could do 2 games Friday, 5 or 6 games Saturday, and 3 to 4 on Sunday including the Finals, which paid more.

Being the money grubbing little shit I was, I chose to make the cash and stop playing...

By the time I was 16 or 17 I was making 18 per game, and doing 12 games a week (plus any select, or extra games you picked up by getting to know a coach)

That was DAMN good money for a kid in the late 90's.

But I digress... The WORST were the parents. There were always the few coaches that were "that guy" and we dealt with them. (Our head umpire backed us up and if we tossed someone from the game, she had our back. If they kept going, she even let us kick them out from the NEXT game if it was bad enough. She didn't tolerate nonsense and if an umpire wasn't good, or went on a power trip she got rid of them.)

There got to be a core group of umpires at the ball fields, my brother ShneaSig being among them that were very good at it, and had the respect of pretty much all the coaches and parents.

Over that time I had parents come onto the field and swing lawn chairs at umpires, kids throw balls intentionally to hit the umpires (literally the pitcher calling a play where the catcher moves out of the way and the pitch hits the umpire square in the chest), one father attempt to "call out" an umpire into the parking lot to fight (which riled up the entire group of umpires and had about 20 high school kids going to the parking lot to kick his ass, to which he got in his car and fled).

Most of the people were great, and a quick word between innings with the parents/coaches solved the problem. There were always the select group of idiots that needed a more heavy handed approach (and once, having LE called) to settle them down. I handed out 2 bans during my time there, and for VERY EXTREME and repeated behavior.

“Take that you piece of shit!”
Imagine being the husband or the kids?!

Fred tried to explain it too his 7 y.o. grandson.

Sports,
It's about fun. . . . And boundaries.
Just like courtesy,

There are five things you can say or do upon meeting people,
and there are five things that are not acceptable or appropriate.

Social interaction or what we used to call deportment is every bit as important today as it was in the early 60's

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:

There are five things you can say or do upon meeting people, and there are five things that are not acceptable or appropriate.

What are the five / five things?

“For a fat girl you don’t sweat much” is one that comes to mind as unacceptable

"What are the five / five things[/quote]"
By VTail

Perhaps I did not say it correctly.

I am very sure that most here will agree that civil interactions between people have parameters that both party's can abide by to insure that all involved will be comfortable experiencing.

And
There are the other aspects that the parties will agree most likely cause a very contemptuous atmosphere.