Parents are the root of everything that’s wrong in sports, right?
After all, most of us are exchanging blows with officials in the parking lot, screaming at coaches about not playing our D1 or bust superstars, and telling the club/team how stupid they are. We’re all complete morons, you know. In fact, with every social post illustrating how parents should not even be allowed to watch games live, you get countless comments from other virtue-signaling coaches and parents how their parenting could never reach the depths demonstrated by the vile behavior of the average sports dad. After all, that guy once yelled at an official on a non-call after his daughter broke an ankle in 2 places on the equivalent of a horse collar American football tackle but instead of her shirt being used, her ponytail was a better choice to grab her from behind. How dare that SOB say a word to that official or the coach that asked her to toughen up.
I honestly don’t understand why we all just hand over our wallets, sit down and shut up and only speak if we’re told to regardless of what’s happening to OUR children.
Gimme a break.
There are clearly some idiot parents out there—without a doubt. What a shock. Just like there are an alarming number of terrible coaches, clubs, officials and ‘trainers’ circling around our children and all to eager to take our money. Unsurprisingly, there are a number of doctors, lawyers, bankers, Wal-Mart workers, public health professionals, millionaires, paupers, COLLEGE SOCCER COACHES and all-to-big percentage of all people from any walk of life or background that are also complete sh!theads. It’s a fact of life and always has been, but it doesn’t mean those groups are the majority or even close io it.
Learn to deal with it.
Deal with it well and you’ll be great at what you do. It’s a life skill. Toughen up. Complaining that people, especially in matters around their kids and money, aren’t going to be perfect and at times a little unreasonable makes you little more than master of the obvious. Your inability to deal with it and resorting to casting your income source (sports parents) as the source of all evil makes you something far less flattering.
Listen, there aren’t too many pissed-off people at Disneyworld. People pay for a premium thing for the kids and almost all the time, they get a premium product and experience for it. Competitive youth sports today costs more than a trip to Disneyworld—every year—and it also requires a supreme level of year-round time and family commitment. What is that experience like? Disney? Overwhelmingly, no. Disney wouldn’t say “You don’t understand what it is to deliver a theme park experience. I do. So, give me your wallet, sit down and shut up and only speak if told to regardless of what’s happening to your children” and then complain theme park visitors are the problem with the theme park business.
Too many sports parents are jerks. No question. The overwhelming majority are not. In fact, too many doing the complaining about those mean parents are the ones attempting to escape accountability for how much they suck at what they do, how little value they provide kids for the money the parents pay, and the time they invest. With all the incompetent, careless, irresponsible, money-grabbing sportspeople unwilling to look at their own group’s contribution to the state of youth sports affairs, it’s not hard to imagine how some of these parents could be so on edge.
Can parents be a problem? Of course. But to latch onto the feeding frenzy that parents are the root of all youth sports evil without even a cursory examination of the number of charlatans and ‘youth sports professionals’ making their car payment on your training fees, the accusation thrown at parents is at best incomplete and at worst a dodge from a system increasingly premium pay-for-play and saddled with half-wits and rank incompetence.
