Youth Sports (i.e. the thing we all loved which parents have now ruined)

@Scout thinks the ref likely deserved it.

 

Sean Payton was on with Dan Patrick this morning and said one condition of coaching with his son's sixth-grade team while he was suspended was not having to deal with parents. He said he was appalled with some of the behavior he saw in the stands at his son's high school games and that he'd much rather deal with the media than parents.

 

I assisted with selections for a high level girls hockey team this fall. When the coach was making his late final choices, he made sure there were no red flag parents involved.

And a story of a red flag parent I know - when her child didn’t make AA (daughter is 12), she asked to get feedback from the coach who cut her. He was amenable, but then she said “no I want you to phone my daughter and you tell her why she wasn’t good enough”. The coach ably sensed a no win situation and said “no fucking way.” After that, her kid was cut from the A team as well, and caught on with B I believe. Word gets around. And this woman has three kids in the organization who will all fall under her reputation.

 

What is 93Devil up to these days?

 

Scouting.

 

Yes, but what did the referee do to deserve it?

 

It's over! It's over!

We wrapped up our season with a trip to Knoxville the weekend before Thanksgiving for a tournament.

Two of our three best players didn't go, but that was OK - because their parents are my No. 1 and No. 2 seed for "Parents I hated the most." It for sure made a more enjoyable weekend.

We lost our first game 28-22 - gave up a TD in the last minute. Won our last game 22-8, after trailing 8-0 (and against a team probably more talented than we were). Our middle game? A forfeit - because the other team "didn't know there was a consolation bracket," mostly because Travel Football is some of the most disorganized ad hoc figure-it-out-as-we-go bullshit in the world.

Nevertheless: A decently fun weekend with low stress because all the right parents made the trip with us. And now I've packed up my football stuff for the season, thankful this debacle of a season is over!

Back to Parks and Rec next year.


P.S.: One of our super stars who didn't go as it turns out suited up for another team and played in their tournament. They ate a 54-0 loss. I can't believe super star's dad couldn't stand on the sideline and personally coach his son to something closer than 54-0! He shoulda tried harder.

 

And he cost his kid a scholarship!

 

If you’re a referee, why would you put up with it?

Perspective | Sports parents are horrible and referees are finally doing something about it — quitting ][ The Washington Post

 

Yup. And it's a vicious cycle: Parents and coaches abuse inexperienced refs; inexperienced refs quit, and are replaced with even-less experienced refs; Parents and coaches abuse these refs, too.

During my newspapering days, I became something of a quasi-expert on girl's field hockey, mostly by striking up relationships with all the local refs. When I got out of the paper I got hit with lots of, "Hey you should ref field hockey."

Yeah no thanks - I listened to those parents heap abuse at refs calling fouls in a sport the parents barely understand ....