Randy Smith: Out Of Control Parents

  • Monday, May 16, 2022
  • Randy Smith
This past weekend I had a chance to witness first-hand something I have been writing about for quite a while. Parents acting unruly at youth sporting events. I won't mention where it happened nor will I mention any teams by name. There were two coaches on one team who had been screaming at their kids from the very moment the game started. They chose to yell and scream rather than calmly teach their kids as the game progressed. These were seven- and eight-year-old youngsters who had obviously not been playing the game every long at all.
Later in the game, these same two coaches started yelling at the one umpire they had to the point he threw them out of the game and forfeited the contest to the other team. That team had been ahead anyway, but the team with the unruly coaches gave their team no chance at all to come back and win. For the folks leaving the game, I'm sure they had a bad taste in their mouths no matter which team they were there to cheer for. 

That was just one incident. One of my old friends posted on Facebook something he was a witness to this weekend at the same tournament.  Parents from two teams at a youth game, actually fighting each other during the game. One woman who was seated in a chair was shoved to the ground by another parent. Eventually the police showed up and two people were ejected from the park, and once again the game was forfeited. These incidents happened while the poor children watched in amazement at how idiotic their parents are and other parents watched in disgust at the behavior of their fellow fans. Disgust is a strong word, but it's the best one I can use to describe things like this.

When parents get out of control they should be banned from that park for a long time, maybe even forever. That likely would not work because they will just go to another park or rec center to allow their kids to go through it all over again. The bottom line is this: there is no place in youth sports for this kind of behavior.  At no place nor time is this ever acceptable. 

I ask myself over and over again, "When will this kind of conduct end?" even though I know the answer already. Never. It will never end because the egos of parents who think they are the gods of softball and baseball and are trying to live out their own dreams of athletic success that obviously failed, through their own children. If you have never witnessed anything like this, check out the videos of ball field fights that are on Youtube. You'll see ignorance and stupidity at its very worst. 

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Randy Smith can be reached at rsmithsports@epbfi.com
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