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

That's why you immediately document his abusive/threatening statements.

 

I don't think he was accusing us of actually molesting children -- just for some reason deciding that we took joy in moving a player down because his son isn't as good as the father thinks.

Here's the next level crazy -- we get an email today from the mother asking where the offer for the younger son is.... apparently "you fuckers. We are done with your fucking club and your fucking bullshit" doesn't apply to the 7 year old. We told the mother that we assumed that "fuck off" applied to our engagements with all her children.

 

Well of course he probably wasn't actually literally accusing anybody of actual sexual assault of children but allowing these statements without consequences is why they have become ubiquitous.
Hell, I myself have said many many things online I would never ever have said 40 years ago, in person or in writing.
Because I know unless you make a specific creditable actionable threat against a particular individual, you can always skate on the basis you were being rhetorical or dramatic or satirical.
So here we are, anybody can threaten to kill anybody, anybody can call anybody they want kidfuckers, and on and on we go.

 

Wait ... I thought that was "precisely" what he was doing. Yes, I'm certain I read that somewhere once.

 

I oughta kill you, you kidfucker. Oh wait, tee hee, just kidding.

 

My conscience is clear ... precisely so, in fact.

 

Actually literally

 

Update on this one -- they closed out their season yesterday. They ended up winning the conference-wide tournament and finishing second in their top flight. (The two systems ran separately in parallel.) Probably would have won the flight too except they split the series with the team that won it when their the top three players and the two coaches elected to play with their other club instead of the town club for that game. Three top players our plus a COVID case meant they had to play that game with 8 players from the team plus my son's younger sister -- 9 years old and holds her own with U10 boys but that extra size from U11 boys was a bit of a stretch. No subs and a third grade girl playing on a 5th grade boys team and they still only lost 2-1.

They close out their last game with a 3-0 win and the kids go from celebrating to crying in about 5 minutes. In the long run, each player having a chance to develop at the level that fits them best and get a chance to play with new players is a good thing. But Sunday afternoon, they were all pretty miserable.

 

Youth baseball coach breaks 72-year-old umpire's jaw with 'sucker punch' during tournament in New Jersey (msn.com)

 

With parents like that, what are the kids going to be like ?

 

I can only imagine. And, ugh, how seriously some people take this.

My kid played a game a few weeks ago in bracket play where they lost by like four. It was a team I bet they beat around 6 or 7 times out of 10. It was a little disappointing, but it was at the end of a long, hot weekend and no one on our team reacted negatively the whole time.

Afterward, several parents on their team talked to us and mentioned how fun of a game it was and how nice it was to play us. I kind of thought it was weird because, while a good enough game, nothing out of the ordinary took place one way or the other. Our coach said their coaches told him basically they enjoyed playing a team where everyone wasn't freaking crazy. It is one thing I like about the makeup of our families, while there are sometimes some under-the-breath complaints about coaching moves or a call on the field or whatever, everyone is supportive of everyone and no one ever raises their voices, and definitely not at the kids. Always amazes me how often people go off on kids. I think that's what that team liked, the level headedness.

I feel most teams honestly are like that, but there are some crazy teams out there. Usually, parents fall in line with coaches in that regard. It's like, these are 10-year-olds, what are we getting out of these temper tantrums?

 

I always think back to an EWF line in "That's the Way of the World":

Child is born with a heart of gold.
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Hate is learned, they're not born with it.