What types of parents are the worst to deal with???

See, I would have retorted with "Thanks for the advice sir. Maybe now I can tell you how to be a better parent."

 

Azom...on a few rare occasions, our paper has been deemed racist by an irate parent who felt we didn't give a team adequate coverage because they were an all-black school. thankfully, they've been very few and far between. obviously, said parents who made this claim weren't aware that our paper was providing publicity and running photos of all-black programs back in the day when the vast majority of papers in the South--big or small--weren't providing coverage for such schools. of course, during these times, we had a lot of rednecks call us all kinds of names. some people, unfortunately, never get it, do they? or too dumb to get it.

 

Haven't read entire thread, but here are mine:
1. Parents who never were good athletes now living through their kids. On the flip side, I work in a city where there are many former D-I and professional athletes who now have kids at the prep level. Never a problem with them because they don't have to live through their children's successes.
2. Parents who have paid their kids way through all the travel teams, thinking it was going to ensure their kids would become superstars earning D-I scholarships and then it's the coach's fault when it doesn't happen and want to use us as a forum to attack everyone associated with the program.
3. Parents who call to rip another kid on the team or the coach. Then there are those who take it to the next level and try to do so anynomously and suggest that we do a story on another kid. Most don't realize there's such a thing called "caller ID." I had this occur not to long ago and called the caller by his name. When he said he wasn't Mr. Smith, I said that I had caller ID and asked if Mr. Smith would be upset that you're using his phone. Click.

 

A lot of the country doesn't have this privelege, but I'd like to nominate (downhill) skiing parents.

I have one, who, this year:
1. Passive-aggressively demanded a season preview ("like the basketball and hockey teams get" when their first meet was a month ago.
2. Wrote an e-mail which said "sometimes I wonder who writes these things," because I failed to mention her son (who finished in eighth) was listed as an also-ran and that he won a medal which went un-mentioned. I should mention that nothing on the results sheet indicated who won medals of any kind.
3. Passive-aggressively mentioned that she and others took out a full-page ad for the team's trip to the state meet, which she did out of the goodness of her heart (even though she works for a competing media outlet), with the tacit implication that it should lead to better coverage.

The nature of skiing indicates that they're doing pretty good financially, and the amount of money that gets sunk into it (lift tickets, travel, etc.) creates a big sense of entitlement.

 

You should have told her skiing is not a sport. Sports are for athletes, not rich snobby kids.

 

Well, got a new one today.

A co-worker of mine went to the state's individual cheer leading meet Thursday and wrote an article on this small school's one athlete in attendance. Parent emails saying it was a nice article but wants more in-depth coverage of cheer leading.

More specifically, she wants to know why the cheer leading team "did nothing this season" and says "their effort at boys' basketball games was an embarrassment to the school and the town."

She then caps her rant with the following: "These girls get Varsity letters? This coach gets paid?" and says "That is an article that I would like to read,", signing it.

I'm really tempted to write back "We didn't cover the sport more in-depth and/or bash those girls because we don't give a shit about cheer leading and it's not a real sport".

I won't, however, as it's addressed to something my coworker covered, not me.

 

Before basketball season started a few years ago, we received a 4-page preseason "prospectus" on this one particular kid, written by his father. Pop listed five D1 schools his son was considering, plus the local D3 school. Among the gems on this thing was that he boy was to be called "Jonathan", not John or Johnny, plus glowing quotes from his AAU coach (his dad, the guy who wrote it) and from a long-time basketball observer (his grandfather).

A group of us happened to run into the local D3 coach a couple of days later at lunch. We told him about what we had received and that his school was listed. He told us, in no uncertain terms, that the kid couldn't play at the D3 level. Too short to play inside in college and, at 6-3, couldn't handle the ball well enough to play guard.

The kid was a decent high school player and was the first at his school to score 1,000 points. But you can Google the kid's name and you won't find anything past high school.

Dad later coached a high school team for a year, went 2-20, and hasn't been heard from again.

 

I love when people say they are "considering" several D-I schools when, in actuality, they'd jump at the chance to play anywhere in D-3.

 

I'd write a letter, if only to tell you that cheerleading is one word.

 

To echo an earlier Shotty post,

If you are going to win the state title, or at least make it, go ahead and play on, brothers (and sisters). If not, go ahead and lose in the first round.

 

I wrote it as one word and the damn thing kept coming up as incorrect in the spell check. Didn't feel like looking at the red lines, so i just spaced it out.

 

Not me, App, I don't think. I'm the one who gets a little bothered when we're rooting for the hometown kids to get knocked out in the first round.

These kids aren't playing to make our lives easier. They're playing for a very small window in time, trying to get what memories they can get out of it. If they can stay alive in the state tournament for an extra round, more power to 'em.