For those with kids playing team sports, always remember this too. As a coach, I have three different octaves my voice can go to....conversation, issuing instructions across the diamond, and full on bullhorn to reach the outfielders (I've done auditorium presentations for upwards of 300 people without a microphone). Always consider 'what' is being offered to little Jimmy and not the octave its being delivered with. And though you may find it intimidating, ask little Jimmy how he feels about it and I guarantee he won't be intimidated at all.

The worst I have seen was back when my boys were playing middle school soccer. In a relatively small town, one family ran everything, owning numerous businesses.
The father ran the entire soccer league and also coached his own team which he ran like the SS. His kids played the whole game, while average kids sat on the benches. He stacked his team with the largest and fastest players.

My sons were on another team, and he taught his own kids and team players to intimidate, insult, scream in other player's faces, and if that didn’t work- do physical attacks such as charging the goalie (in particular when he didn’t have the ball), leg sweeps, ankle blocks, you name it. Whatever it took to win. ...And the refs worked for him. A lot of good kids were hurt during that time.
If another team began having wins, he then targeted the parents with intimidation & politics- (if they worked for one of his companies).

What an absolute waste of a human being. All he taught those kids was bullying and intimidation.

It was a no win situation. My sons played their time and got out.

quote:

Originally posted by Krazeehorse:
Remember it’s for fun. Your kid isn’t going to be a pro. They most likely aren’t going to be a D1 scholarship athlete. If they’re having fun then sit back and relax. If they aren’t then sadly they need to find another activity.

This is what I always tried to explain. Kids had fun, parents had wildly unrealistic expectations.

The adults are the problem, some of that negativity trickles-down to teh kids and the you get young bullies & assholes in-training, running around. The balanced and reasonable parents need to stick together and not let the jerks and assholes bully the coach/ref/umpire/kids

Every time I see a parent screaming and yelling, I keep on think of this scene. The pinnacle time of these people's lives was in high school; they pull-out their letterman jacket for every game, go on vacation and compare who went to which high school, continue to talk about THAT ONE GAME!

Younger Son (turned 7 in January) just did his first season of wrestling. I was impressed with the local program and the coaches. He will return to it when it begins its next season in late November.

Older Son (turned 9 in February) just had his first little league practice (ever) yesterday. The coach is a good man who does not tolerate jerk behaviors. I think my Son will do well on that team and sport provided he puts the effort into it.

I have friends with HS age daughters that are soccer players and they have certainly seen and continue to see piggish behaviors on some of the parents ( or sad excuse for a parent). The stories I have heard are cringey for sure.

My take in my limited experience thus far is that the more blue collar-ish the team and parents appear to be , the less jerky behaviors the adults will have or will tolerate of others directly involved with the team. Moneyed suburban types and ghetto shits seem to be the root of most cringey stories I have heard.

My son played baseball from 1st grade through a mens league team when he was 19. He played increasingly competitive travel ball from aged 10 through HS. He was THE catcher on most teams, including HS. Very good HS player who could have played D3 ball, but like his father, 5'10" so limited by size. I'm happy to report that while I ran into many total asshat parents, only 1-2 questionable biased coaches, but no control freak a-holes. I think most parents of kids going the travel baseball route will have periods when they got too involved and off-field coaching, myself included, but again, our overall experience was quite good.

HS baseball could get damn chippy. Especially for really competitive HS teams, where good to very good players could have a hard time getting on the field and in weaker program they's be starters or even studs.

OTOH, my son was always an "insider" on his mediocre HS team and pretty much always played every inning and batted near the top of the order. I remember proud parents from former LL teams happy their kid made JV, and then watched in increasing apathy as they realized their kid would only get garbage inning time, and stopped coming. Even in HS baseball, it is about WINNING, and the best players play. And "if you can hit, you don't sit."

Reminds me of a recent swim meet my son was in. In one of my son’s 500 Free, the coaches were screaming and so were some parents. I just watched my son swim until one of the parents of another swimmer on my son’s team asked me how he was doing to which I replied calmly and quietly, “He’s winning.” And he did, by 15 seconds.

quote:

Originally posted by rsbolo:
I don't disagree with you guys, adults have contributed to the demise of youth sports. I think the major contributing factor is the money.

Travel teams, club teams, elite "sports academies", generate a metric fuckton of cash that magnifies and exacerbates all of the bullshit that surrounds youth sports.

High School sports are nothing compared to the private "club" and "travel" teams of today. A close friend of mine has two girls in club volleyball teams and he spends tens of thousands of dollars each year traveling to tournaments...the hope is all this exposure will pay off in college scholarships. Let me tell you, those parents are intense. (My friend is remarkably dedicated and not an asshole and his girls are lovely people but he does complain about his lack of "free time")

In my opinion it is the monetization of youth sports that has steepened the slope of the decline.

You are correct. It is all about money. The high school coaches will also have club teams that not only make them a bit of extra income, but it is a recruiting tool as well. It is amazing how much parents will spend on club sports when if they had put that money in a 529 they would be guaranteed to be able to afford school.

A couple of years ago my grandson was playing T-ball . The opposing Coach got so bent out of shape over something that he filed a protest with the League . A freaking protest over a T-ball game ...

So we are all in agreement then,
The negative aspects of this practice far out weigh any positives and should be discontinued to save society for the children.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
So we are all in agreement then,
The negative aspects of this practice far out weigh any positives and should be discontinued to save society for the children.

Not exactly. I think the consensus is if we could pull the parents out of it (from both coaching and spectating), the $, and the “it’s all about who you know” vs. who might actually make the cut if there was no bias…
We’d pretty much have it made.

Parents shouldn’t be allowed to any sport event that involves Preteens. That is the worst age group for parents acting like A**holes.