Sports Parents

Last year at the Fall awards banquet our athletic director made a comment that the worst behaved parents are always at the soccer games.  Doug and I laughed about that as we thought there were a lot of sports where parents get out of control and soccer wasn't at the top of our list.  Obviously, we were wrong and were proved so this fall season.

Last week at the high school girls game our athletic director, Wik, had to toss an opposing team's father for screaming at and threatening our scorekeeper.  All the woman did was ask his daughter to close the gate behind her and to stop walking near the field during the game.  When the girl blew the scorekeeper off she touched her arm to get her attention and everything blew up from there.

Meg and I weren't at the game to witness this incident and Doug was coaching, so all of the information we were given was secondhand.  We were there tonight and were able to witness firsthand Wik's ability to clear out unruly fans.  A Northridge player received a red card early in the game that led to a penalty kick goal for Wawasee.  Twenty minutes later one of the parents was still yelling at the ref about it.  Wik went over and asked the crowd to refrain from yelling, the play was over and they needed to calm down.  One of the parents just went crazy screaming at him.  The next thing I heard was Wik's voice beaming, "You're going to talk to me like that?"  He kicked her out of the game as well as several others around her.  They didn't go quietly, however, and the resource officer at our school had to escort them out.  We all sat in disbelief.  I had been enjoying watching Doug's team and talking to the parents of his players.  There are some that are loud, but not belligerent.

After tonight I kept wondering how it will be for Doug's crowd next year.  Meg's middle school team has a lot of screaming parents.  They yell at the girls and the refs.  Most of the time they do not even have a clue what they are yelling.  It has made the games awful to sit at.  Since the parents are doing it, the girls have started in at each other as well.  It has made for an unpleasant and unsupportive atmosphere.  I hope all of this settles down before next year.  Doug hasn't had much drama from his team and I sure would hate to see that end.  At least I know that our AD takes it seriously and hopefully we won't have to listen to it next fall.  Screaming at children never make them play better.  I wish everyone could see that.