posted
OK, I need some help here. My son is eight. he has left the comforting arms of The Instructional League, and has set out into the world of Competitive Youth Soccer.
A dad sitting next to me spent the entire game screaming at his son(and being fairly obnoxious to other people's sons as well.)
Everything was negative, no matter what he was doing. When his son scored, though...complete silence. (I thought I might strangle him at that point)
My son loves playing, and I know I have to let go of my "Everyone's a Winner ahd Everyone Should Have Equal Time" 70's hippie philosophy, but do I have to listen to this man? (and he is not really the only one, just the worst.)
Should I say something to the coach? Sit on the other side of the field? If he yells at my son, I know I will go ballistic, but I am already close to ballistic just listening to him yell at his own son.
Are there any parents out there who have dealt with this? It is a new one for me.
Help!
[ September 17, 2004, 05:45 PM: Message edited by: Elizabeth ]
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posted
What ever you do, don't say anything while your standing next to him. Once some idiot accused me of being cheap during a wrestling match, I couldn't hear him, but he was standing next to my mom. My mother told him to, “be quiet or move to the other side of the gym." (that was in the police report), the man said, “or what". My mother let her Texan side loose on that poor Yankee man, I don't think he'll over recover, but he didn't press charges.
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posted
Oh hell, welcome to the world of vicarious living. (Vicious living?)
This has been a growing trend in youth sports for parents to become way, way too involved in their children's activities and behave like the fellow you're describing.
My advice is two-fold:
1. Talk to your son and explain that some people take the game far too seriously. Explain the notion of sportsmanship and perspective - sometimes competitiveness is good and winning can also be good, but it's not the end all, be all of living.
2. Remember the sad little man and make a point not to be near him.
posted
You know, I always wondered why we had to sign a bunch of papers saying there was no yelling. Sort of a parental behavior contract. It seemed silly then, but not now.
If he had yelled, "Yay, SON!!" when he scored, my opinion would have been a little bit better. OK, no it wouldn't, but at least his son would have felt better.
I heard of one coach who imposed silent sidelines. Now I know why. Sheesh.
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posted
Speaking to a coach may be a good strategy. Speaking to an official may be an even better strategy, because officials generally have the authority to keep fans in line and remove those who are out of hand.
Truthfully, though, I doubt either will work effectively. Having played, coached, and refereed in youth basketball leagues for a number of years myself, I'd say I'm pretty confident that that stuff is really a part of the game. There just ARE going to be crazy parents, and sometimes crazy coaches too. Going ballistic will only make things worse.
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Xap: You are right, it is a reality, and a sad one. This guy is the worst on our team, but some of the other parents are close in line.
I have not seen it in basketball, but that switches to competitive this year, too, I think. Maybe I should just take valium or something before the game. I like Dag's idea, though.
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posted
Better yet, can I just borrow you and the sword together? You could become a new kind of superhero.
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quote: Soccer refs have a lot of power in terms of being able to throw out fans, not just players.
Actually that's not really accurate. While we technically can throw out anyone on or near the field, any referee who knows what he or she is doing will never throwout a fan or yelling at their own kid with exception being the use of profanity. Since we can't distinguish between a parent yelling at their own kid and at someone elses its extremely rare to ever see a parent ejected period. Unless parents are getting particularly abusive, refs generally won't even eject them when they are throwing out their hate at the refs themselves.
Xap, only in large tournaments with field marshalls are fans really going to be able to be kept in check.
Once during a 3 v 3 tournament in a game between teams fielded by the same travel squad a mother berated her son so badly he broke into tears.
Dag, I've had those same thoughts when parents or coaches are yelling at me . So people, keep that in mind the next time you yell at ref, especially when you scream, "That's not a handball, it hit his arm!"
Elizabeth, I think your solution is to talk to the coach, even at the "competitive" level they're still only kids and they should be playing for fun.
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posted
The first thing is not to sit by this guy anymore.
Find other parents like yourself, either positive cheerers or people fed up with Loud Guy. Band together as a group, strength and cheering volume in numbers. If possible, come up with your own cheers, including either the team name or the players' names.
If the kids see you having fun, being creative on the sidelines, they appreciate it. If another parent hears a positive cheer/rhyme about their kid being cheered/sung, they'll catch on and join in.
Use simple rhymes and link them to tunes everyone, even the kids, know.
{Farmer in the Dell} We need to score a goal, We need to score a goal, Come on, [insert team name here] We need to score a goal!
Just get creative and have fun. Loud can be good too Posts: 349 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
I have no experience with soccor, but I did spend a large portion of my life playing Little League baseball, and I imagine it's rather similar, though I've heard soccor is typically worse. So anyways, keep in mind all my advice is coming from the baseball perspective.
First off, I wouldn't talk to the coach. He has no power of the father, and asking him to do something about it only puts him in a very bad situation, I seriously doubt he'll be able to do anything other than get the parent even more upset, only now at him, or let you down. Not a fun position for a guy whose just volunteering his time to try and help kids. :-/
Talking to the officials might work, I doubt it but I don't really know. In LL the umps techincally can throw out whoever they wants, or make them leave, one of the guys on my dorm floor last year was a baseball ump and he said he once threw-out an entire bleacherfull of parents. Most of the time though the umps wont have the power, will, or really right to do anything about it, so I don't think it'll help.
Really, however sad it is, I don't think there's a single thing you can do about this, unless he is using profanity, or you have a very good reason to believe there's abuse going on. I'd say sit on the other side, but really, there will always be parents like this, trying to help their children by teaching them only dissapointment and fear, there's probably someone on the other side whose ruining their child's life just as much as this guy is.
posted
I think the idea of allies is a good one. The coach is pretty competitive himself, and also young. We have spoken to him before in Rec league about the fact that it was, in fact, instructional soccer, and uscored, so keeping the same guys in was pretty inappropriate. (OK, "we" was my husband, who had told me to go to the car at the point when I was going to talk to him)
The thing that bothers me the most, when it comes down to it, is that which I can control the least: the fathering of this young boy. I have to let that go, and it is hard.
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I was in 6th grade, and playing baseball. I've been on a good basketball team, one that won almost every game we ever played, but I have never once been on an even average baseball team. This year was no different, we were good enough that we didn't lose every game, but we weren't about to be named world champs, if you know what I mean. That was OK though, I played baseball because I loved (and do love) the game, and though like anyone I wanted to win, I knew that winning wasn't as important as playing, and I savored every minute of it (no longer being able to play organized ball is perhaps the thing I regret most about getting older).
We were playing a team called the "A"s, all the teams were named after official Major League teams, but for some reason their full name wasn't "Athletics", it was just As, and they had a huge "A" swen on their shirt, if only it was scarlet! Anyways, they were one of the few teams worse than us, but it wasn't for lack of hate-filled, spittle=driven, ignorant-laced speech from their coach, who seemed to think the world was out to get him and the best way to strike back was through coaching little league baseball.
Well in our league there's something called "the mercy rule", you baseball parents should be framilar with this, to make sure the game doesn't last for days there's a limit placed on the number of runs any team is allowed to score in one inning. We were beating the living .... we were winning by a good margin as we approached the final inning. Due to the high score (something like 23 to 2 ) it was late, and a storm was moving in. With only one inning left the 'A's couldn't score enough runs to even tie, due to the mecy rule. The Ump (almost all the Umps, including this one, are 17 year-old high schoolers) brought over both coaches and told them that, as was his perogative, he was going to cancel the game without playing the last inning.
The 'A''s coach went balastic. It certainly was not the Umpire's choice, it was HIS choice by gum, and he wanted to play! Well our coach wouldn't stand for it, he actually knew the rules (which did side with the Ump) and they got into a huge argument. An instruction book was brought out eventually, I'm not sure if they ever looked at it, or if the 'A's coach just gave in, but after 5 or ten minutes everyone was called in, the game was over.
So we trotted out, perfectly happy to be spared another inning, to shake our opponents hand and over the regular "good game" remark 22 times, only to discover that the opposing coach was not going to let his players out to shake our hands. We were "cheaters", and the game wasn't really over. So after sitting there for a few seconds we shrugged our shoulders and left. Then the 'A's flooded the field, their coach had informed them that they were going to have practice right there and then, since they were supposed to have played another inning, they deserved more game time!
This is the mentality of some people when it comes to youth sports. Of course all of this was from the same coach who got, in the middle of 30 degree weather made me take off my liner shirt while pitching because it was the wrong color. ... I learned how to throw a screwball that day, and you better believe we won!
posted
Isn't there a pun thread you should be posting in?
It was pretty great though, I threw mainly sidearm (though I would go to the 3/4 motion, and occasionaly, the overhead) and I threw sidearm screwball, a thing to behold.
posted
Hobbes, Do you think soccer is taking over baseball as the national parents-acting-like-complete-asses sport? I don't hear as much about Little League parents as I did when I was younger, and I also don't see as much Little League. Our town just got Little League two years ago. Or is it just that our town, sort of a traditionally rural town gone suburb, is moving more into the mainstream?
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posted
Soccer is taking over everything in kids sports. It makes me sad to be honest. I suppose fair is fair but that's not going to stop me from feeling that baseball is really the best sport ever to be played, and the absolute best one to grow up with.
posted
Hobbes, I am a soccer player from way back, and yet I agree with you. I am not even sure why. I think my son is more of a baseball player than a soccer player, and his love of the Red Sox is genetically encoded. He dreams of baseball season, and, like you, will probably be a pitcher. He throws the ball at the fence every day for at least half an hour. We got him a pitchback, but I hear the ping of the fence anyway.
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posted
I'd just like to add that basketball is better than both baseball AND soccer, especially as a kids sport - and that it certainly holds its own in terms of crazy parents. Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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I as being a soccer kid, know what you are going through. I am on the BU14 Travel Team for Tewksbury, MA. Throught my years of playing soccer, which is seven, I have heard not only adults, but coaches screaming at their kids. This is very unessesary. What league is your son in? Ex BU8, BU10, BU12, etc. At my age level know, if anyone starts yelling at the kids they get kicked off the field.
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He is not in those leagues. In our town(also in Mass.) there is a soccer club, and the travel games are all in our basic area. It is an option for kids whose parents don't want to travel so far. Perhaps that is the problem, now that I think of it. Maybe the bigger, more "serious" leagues have stricter rules.
Adam, I agree. Soccer seems to have taken the place of Little League in meanie fans.
Our last game was cancelled, and Soccer Dad only yelled at his son once, for stepping in a puddle.
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posted
We don't travel that far either. Ours is a travel team too. Were do you live. Are you part of the Merrimac Valley?
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Also known as The Happy Valley, because of all the hippies who gravitated here for college and never left.
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Hearing stuff like this makes me feel lucky, My coaches in the Sheboygan soccer league were incredible. Was on the same team five, six years before we moved. Same with the parents.
Now, some of our opponents . . .
BUt this is partly why I never went into YMCA soccer. I was in YMCA basketball and I left disgusted after one season because the coaches were ridiculously competitive. Same with YMCA swimming.
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posted
Oh. Yah I'm part of Merrimac Valley League. I live in Tewksbury. I would think it would be awfully similar though. You don't travel far right? You must be Intertown. That only travels a little ways away. Mostly neighbor towns. Travel usually is about 10 - 40 minutes away.
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My suggestion is to remove a limb off of this "soccer dad" every time he gets an atitude. Then pour some good old, home fermented moonshine on the wounds. That'll take care of him.
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Elizabeth, it has nothing to do with not being in a high enough level of competition. Some teams are just well behaved while the vast majority have at least a few trouble makers that will berate kids, refs, and each other. The more serious the league the rules probably will be stricter, but by stricter I mean a closer adherence to USSF/FIFA rules which wouldn't allow for tossing out spectators on a whim.
DR, unless that's a special rule of the league you play in, the refs shouldn't do that unless abusive language or profanity is being used. Its certainly possible that it is a league rule, but the same isn't possible in South Florida where most teams are comprised soccer diehards from Latin America.
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posted
I say we pull out the torches and pitchforks and sit next to him at the next game. Yes, all umpteen-many Jatraqueros there are currently active.
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posted
yeah, it says the refs will do kick you out if you start yelling in the handbook, but they don't. They only do it if it is serious which I have only seen once.
As for this soccer dad. He is probably over excited. Maybe he wanted to play soccer when he was a kid but never got to so he takes his anger out on the kids. Or something like that.
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Soccer Dad was good today. I think Soccer Mom must have told him to be quiet. It was generally a quiet sideline today, and a good game.
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Most of the time though the umps wont have the power, will, or really right to do anything about it, so I don't think it'll help.![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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This year was no different, we were good enough that we didn't lose every game, but we weren't about to be named world champs, if you know what I mean. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Anyways, they were one of the few teams worse than us, but it wasn't for lack of hate-filled, spittle=driven, ignorant-laced speech from their coach, who seemed to think the world was out to get him and the best way to strike back was through coaching little league baseball.![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
) it was late, and a storm was moving in. With only one inning left the 'A's couldn't score enough runs to even tie, due to the mecy rule. The Ump (almost all the Umps, including this one, are 17 year-old high schoolers) brought over both coaches and told them that, as was his perogative, he was going to cancel the game without playing the last inning.![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
