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

I just had a parent email me wanting me to correct a quote by their kid because the kid misremembered something. Sorry, nope. You do not speak for him.

If the kid wants to bring it up with me, that's something else, but I'm not suggesting it.

 

Just tell 'em when his kid makes the varsity team, I'll cover the freshman and junior varsity teams and end varsity coverage. That will shut 'em up.

 

That made me laugh at much too high of a volume for the workplace.

 

One of our three big schools in the city (Mazama) has a *major* inferiority complex. Parents think we cover Klamath Union and/or Henley more, or we only cover them when they lose. Carrying the torch this season is the girls basketball team, which is barely above .500 and is out of playoff contention. The second best part is that the coach has neglected to call in no fewer than two victories, so people think we won't put Mazama in the paper if it wins.

The best part is that the Web comments were posted on a brief that was situated about two spots below a shot of their boys team, which won the league title Tuesday and has a first-round bye at state.

 

I'm amazed nobody hasn't posted anything about parents whose kids try just as hard too.

 

I don't get much trouble from any group of parents. Don't know why that is because with the size of our sports pages lately, we just can't get everything in.

Now as far as parents who cause problems it is without question soccer parents. I'm speaking more about their actions at matches. All of them have coached some rinky-dink club team along the way and know better than the coach, who has led teams to the state championships. I know parents thinking they know more than the coach happens in all sports, but with the small crowds at soccer matches, it is much easier to hear them.

 

My problem was just the opposite. I'd have parents, practically in tears, begging me NOT to put their son/daughter's name in the paper when the little juvenile delinquent got busted by the local police on the day of the state tournament.

I just had to tell them that his/her being out of the lineup raised questions that fans would want an answer to and saying they had a bad case of diarrehea, when I knew otherwise, just didn't cut it.

 

I had the mom of a little league baseballer call me one day bitching about us having her son's name misspelled and she asked me the reason for it.
Being on deadline and grouchier than a pregnant pit bull at the time, I told her with the ultimate saracastic, cynical way that only journalists can do: "Madam, when I woke up this morning, I told myself, 'Self, I am going to misspell (fill in blank) name'."
She actually replied: "Really?"
That's the kind of shit so many of us have had to deal with it, isn't it?

 

Tell her you couldn't read the chicken scratch on the result form. Most of the time that's probably true.

I have the same problem with bowling results. People write in script when the form clearly says to print. Plus the people here write like they're drunk.

 

Because in many areas of the country (not the northeast and mid-Atlantic, obviously) it's a new sport and it's a sport that the well-to-do schools will adopt first.
Therefore, it's parents with a false sense of entitlement demanding instant parity with traditional sports.
Fuck em

 

Face it parents are idiots. Tuesday night, I'm covering a first-round girls playoff game. There's about 4 minutes to play and one team is running the four corners while nursing a six-point lead. In the stands, dumbass parents are yelling for their kid to shoot the ball. Incredible.

 

ZummoSports.....several years ago, I had a coach who dropped off--not kidding--three legal-size pages of handwritten results...the best handwriting expert in the CIA could not have deciphered it.
I call the coach to tell him he had to type it up or email it if it was going to run in the paper.
He went bonkers, got real nasty about it and couldn't believe we weren't going to try and translate the shit he had handed in. I mean, we're talking major, major chicken-scratching here, guys.
Never ran the results because he never turned it in to where it was legible.
We're talking 300-plus names because the information was from like a freakin' week's worth of games.
Unbelievable.