Which youth sports parents are the worst? (1 Viewer)

[Pipes]

My son is in 5th grade and has played baseball, basketball, football, soccer and now just started lacrosse. Every sport has it's share of POA parents but lacrosse takes it to a whole new level. I've only been to a handleful of games but every time parents and both sides are constantly yelling at the officials about kids being too aggressive. Of course when junior wacks someone with a stick they don't say anything. Many parents are constantly whining aloud about cross checking, elbowing etc...sometime warrented usually not.

My wife is more involved in this than I am since I coach baseball and she informed my about her role as a culture keeper. Apparently for every game a parent has to babysit the parents on the sideline but that isn't too effective. I'm just appalled that parents act this way especially since I haven't seen it nearly as much in the other sports listed above.

Please vote and share your stories regarding crazy parents.

 

[E-Z Glider]

The more physical / violent the sport, the more trashy the parents.

 

[Carolina Hustler]

Baseball, and it's not even close... I've coached Baseball, Football, and Soccer, and I've never seen so many premadona parents in my life.. Everyone thinks their kid is the best.. And they argue with everything the ump or coaching staff says or does..

 

[Pipes]

Baseball is 2nd for me. Been coaching for a few years and I do my best to rotate kids as much as possible. Through 5 games this year 8 of my 11 kids have pitched and that is with 2 of our games going 4 innings and the other 3 only getting 5. Despite that I got a somewhat nasty email from 1 of the 3 parents whose kid hasn't pitched yet. Claiming baseball wasn't fun for him and thought everyone should get a chance blah, blah, blah. I sent him the stats (one kids dad is anal and keeps great stats) and our top pitcher has 5 innings, our 2nd had 4, 2 kids had 3 and the rest had 1 or 2. He was mad because his son pitched alot last year and hadn't gotten an opportunity yet. He ignored the fact that his kid has caught at least 2 innings in 4 of our 5 games and also has played 1B in 3 of them so it's not like I stuck him in the OF the entire time. I let his kid pitch 2 innings in game 6 and he did o.k...middle of the pack on our team.

 

[Officer Pete Malloy]

Not sure if it is the worst but one of the things I noticed back when I was reffing kid's soccer is that your typical American parent still doesn't understand many of the basic laws of soccer.

Just because a kid ends up on the ground doesn't mean an infraction occured.

 

[E-Z Glider]

PS - you left cheerleading off the list. From what I hear, these mothers are the worst.

 

[SeaDogStat]

As in everything youth sports related, there are good parents and bad parents, good coaches and bad... you just hope if you're coaching, you get more parents that understand what youth sports are about than the vociferous bad PIA parents...

 

[Wrigley]

Baseball

I used to ump 8-12 year olds.

Parents were brutal. But you would have thought the coaches were trying to win the World Series.

Several occations had parents/coaches follow me out to my car.

Come on, they are kids

 

[Apple Jack]

This is easy. Tennis.

 

[Charlie Steiner]

Not sure if it is the worst but one of the things I noticed back when I was reffing kid's soccer is that your typical American parent still doesn't understand many of the basic laws of soccer. Just because a kid ends up on the ground doesn't mean an infraction occured.

Since you brought it up, I'd like some clarification regarding grabbing/jostling on the ball. Specifically, my son's U15 team had a sequence I don't understand. Coming down the wing, the two boys were both fairly equally giving and receiving contact, though the defender did a lot of grabbing and using his hands to push, but it wasn't until they got near the 18 that the ref stopped play and called a foul on the offensive player. Neither side's parents could figure out what the infraction was, and considering they had gone over half the length of the field without either player losing his position on the ball, it just seemed that the ref arbitrarily stopped the action. All that to ask: if neither player did anything that stood out to anyone--including the parents of the kid that was 'fouled', what could the ref have possibly called against the offensive player, who was being grabbed and jostled the whole time he was on the ball? I sort of get the concept that play can be physical unless one player gets an unfair advantage as a result, but are there any 'subtle' actions that refs are on the lookout for, that on the surface don't look like much but actually do convey an unfair advantage? [/hijack]

 

[collective]

Baseball, and it's not even close... I've coached Baseball, Football, and Soccer, and I've never seen so many premadona parents in my life.. Everyone thinks their kid is the best.. And they argue with everything the ump or coaching staff says or does..

What the hell is a premadona?

I have heard of a prima donna, but not what you typed.

 

[AcerFC]

Hockey

 

[Keerock]

Hockey and it's not close.

 

[mr roboto]

Baseball, and it's not even close... I've coached Baseball, Football, and Soccer, and I've never seen so many premadona parents in my life.. Everyone thinks their kid is the best.. And they argue with everything the ump or coaching staff says or does..

What the hell is a premadona? I have heard of a prima donna, but not what you typed.

People born before Madonna. Duh.

 

[Keerock]

Baseball, and it's not even close... I've coached Baseball, Football, and Soccer, and I've never seen so many premadona parents in my life.. Everyone thinks their kid is the best.. And they argue with everything the ump or coaching staff says or does..

What the hell is a premadona? I have heard of a prima donna, but not what you typed.

People born before Madonna. Duh.

well played!

 

[Pipes]

Hockey and it's not close.

Probably should have combined hockey/lacrosse as 90% of my son's team are hockey players. Probably explains why my son's skill level isn't at the level of the majority of the team.

 

[AcerFC]

Hockey and it's not close.

Probably should have combined hockey/lacrosse as 90% of my son's team are hockey players. Probably explains why my son's skill level isn't at the level of the majority of the team.

And most of the lacrosse kids start hockey 3-4 years before lacrosse so all the hockey parents fine tune their annoying skills before they get to lax.I have been embarrassed to be at a few of my nephews games due to bonehead parents (dads and moms)

 

[Mad Cow]

Very close between baseball and girls soccer. That is more an indictment of how awful the soccer parents are than saying the baseball parents are better than you think.

 

[bryhamm]

I agree ... baseball

 

[avoiding injuries]

Several occations had parents/coaches follow me out to my car.

I'd like to hear more about this. What did they say or do? Did it ever lead to anything?

 

[NCCommish]

As a former AD it's all of the above. Not one sport, not one season went by without some parent going off about their super star kid being held back because someone not as talented got their plays as required by rule. And there are frustrated pro coaches in everyone of them as well. Truly the only reason I did it as long as I did was the kids. I knew when I stepped away it was going to be run by those people. And it was.

 

[DougGlatt]

Hockey and it's not close.

The more you pay for your kid to play, the more right you think you have to express your opinion to the coach. I speak from personal experience. Hockey parents are the worst!

 

[The Hardline]

Soccer can get pretty bad. I was once a referee for kids soccer ages anywhere from 9 - 14. I did it mostly to stay in shape and make some extra dough working local tournaments. I had to send a father to his car one time because he was berating the other team's players and yelling continuously at his son. I asked twice for him to cool it. After about 20 minutes of this stuff I called time and pulled the coach aside and told him if he could not control the situation that I would. He said he did not know what he could do. I then called the parent over to my conversation with the coach and told him to go to his car (not the parking lot because it was close enough that he could stand there and continue to yell and he looked and acted like a real smartass) until the game was over or I would consider the game a forfeit and if they/he had a problem with it they could take it up with the tournament board. I really didn't care if the game got played.

I guess he got the message because after a few more rude comments for me, he walked. The other team's parents cheering as he left did not help the situation much. I could tell his son (who was a pretty good player) was relieved. At halftime I went to both teams and spoke to them and their coaches as two different groups to explain my actions. And after the game both coaches thanked me for making the decision I did. In the end the team who's father I ejected ended up losing anyway so a forfeit would not have made a difference. I decided after that, that making the money and losing my weekend afternoons was not worth the abuse.

Overall though, I will have to say baseball (I have never been to kids hockey or Lacrosse games) because little things happen so often in the blink of an eye that change games.

I had a knucklehead friend who got kicked out of his baseball league when he was 16 for threatening an umpire over a close call on a tag out. Not the game....the league. He threatened to break the ump's arm. He was close to having assault charges filed on him. It was really embarrassing.

 

[cheese]

I think it's hockey, but the only advantage the coaches have is they can somewhat mask who is getting how much ice time. In baseball, parents are capable of counting how many ABs their kid gets or how many innings their kid plays.

But still, hockey parents are insane. If their kid destroys someone for the puck and gets called for a penalty, parents will regularly threaten everyone in the building. If their kid gets bumped at all on the ice, you are all thugs looking to injure their son.

 

[sbonomo]

PS - you left cheerleading off the list. From what I hear, these mothers are the worst.

FlaVVed...not a sport

 

[Deranged Hermit]

PS - you left cheerleading off the list. From what I hear, these mothers are the worst.

If you consider cheerleading a sport, this is the correct answer by far. There's a family that lives down the street from me that my daughter is friends with. They're always trying to recruit her in to their cheer 'club' and I finally broke down and told them I'd go to a competition to see if I want her to be a part of it.

Long story short, those moms put the Honey Boo Boo pagent moms to shame. One coach actually threw a parent out for the third time that month and told her she was not welcome back.

 

[Pick]

As far as in-game behavior, we've found soccer to be pretty good. The leagues my girls play in are very strict about parent behavior. And the refs do a good job getting after bad parents.

Little league football doesn't have those rules but I never saw bad behavior. More obnoxious than anything else.

High school football is rough. On one hand there is a lot of space between the coaches and parents. So people tell you stuff other parents yelled but you never hear it (unless you are listening for it I guess). So in-game not an issue. But we've run into some major issues with parents hunting us down after games. We've even had some actual fights.

 

[Pick]

I was listening to Rick Nuehisel (sp?) at a clinic once and he said some great stuff regarding this. Parents are supposed to be their kid's greatest cheerleader. Don't try to talk them out of that in an attempt to rationalize playing time (in reality their kid probably doesn't deserve much playing time). Even if you're right you're wrong to do that. Instead simply say you are doing what you feel is best for the team.

 

[Wrigley]

Several occations had parents/coaches follow me out to my car.

I'd like to hear more about this. What did they say or do? Did it ever lead to anything?

I did have a coach once throw me against a fence while trying to leave the park. Apparently he didn't know it was illegal to touch the base-runners while they were in the field of play(he tried pushing a kid towards home to get him to score) I called the base-runner out, they lost the game.

Other than that, if was mostly a just parents blowing off steam.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

If you're not voting for hockey then you've likely not been around hockey.

 

[General Malaise]

My son is in 5th grade and has played baseball, basketball, football, soccer and now just started lacrosse. Every sport has it's share of POA parents but lacrosse takes it to a whole new level. I've only been to a handleful of games but every time parents and both sides are constantly yelling at the officials about kids being too aggressive. Of course when junior wacks someone with a stick they don't say anything. Many parents are constantly whining aloud about cross checking, elbowing etc...sometime warrented usually not.

My wife is more involved in this than I am since I coach baseball and she informed my about her role as a culture keeper. Apparently for every game a parent has to babysit the parents on the sideline but that isn't too effective. I'm just appalled that parents act this way especially since I haven't seen it nearly as much in the other sports listed above.

Please vote and share your stories regarding crazy parents.

What is a POA parent?

 

[Politician Spock]

Baseball

I used to ump 8-12 year olds.

Parents were brutal. But you would have thought the coaches were trying to win the World Series.

Several occations had parents/coaches follow me out to my car.

Come on, they are kids

I wish my kids played baseball in your league.

Our league hires kids to umpire the games. My 9 year old was playing in the championship game of the end of the season tournament when the batter from the other team hit a dribbler up the first base line. The batter must have assumed it was going to go foul, because he just stood there looking at it while the catcher went to go get it. Once the batter listened to his coach to run, he began running and knocked over the catcher who was bent over trying to pick up the ball. Having been knocked over, he didn't recover in time to pick up the ball and throw him out. Ump calls the batter safe it first.

The coach of our team of course challenges and wants the batter called out for interference. Ump refuses saying that the runner has the right of way. The ump is probably 12 or 13 years old, and obviously has been taught to never change a call. So the coach gives up. But I remembered seeing the rule that any runner is out when he interferes with a fielder attempting to field a batted ball in print on the league's website. I pulled out my iPad, and low and behold it was easy as pie to find the rule. So I show it to the coach, who in turn takes my iPad on to the field to show it to the ump.

He returns shaking his head, and as he hands my iPad back to me he says the ump is now changing his story and says no contact between the batter and the catcher happened, and the catcher just fell over on his own. Shocked, I said pretty loudly "WHAT?!?! Everyone here saw the collision!!!!" At that point pretty much everyone turned their attention to the ump... who began to start crying.

The inning came to an end, and as soon as it did, the umpire pulls out a cell phone and calls someone. As he is talking he is gasping for air, because he's crying even more than before. Minutes later, someone from the league shows up and tells me I must leave.

My son's team ended up winning, but I didn't get to see it.

 

[17seconds]

how many people are actually qualified to vote in this poll?

 

[Pipes]

My son is in 5th grade and has played baseball, basketball, football, soccer and now just started lacrosse. Every sport has it's share of POA parents but lacrosse takes it to a whole new level. I've only been to a handleful of games but every time parents and both sides are constantly yelling at the officials about kids being too aggressive. Of course when junior wacks someone with a stick they don't say anything. Many parents are constantly whining aloud about cross checking, elbowing etc...sometime warrented usually not.

My wife is more involved in this than I am since I coach baseball and she informed my about her role as a culture keeper. Apparently for every game a parent has to babysit the parents on the sideline but that isn't too effective. I'm just appalled that parents act this way especially since I haven't seen it nearly as much in the other sports listed above.

Please vote and share your stories regarding crazy parents.

What is a POA parent?

Whoops typo...mean't PiA parents (Pain in ###)

 

[NCCommish]

If you're not voting for hockey then you've likely not been around hockey.

Anyone who thinks their sport has cornered the market hasn't been around every other sport.

 

[Sweet J]

Baseball

I used to ump 8-12 year olds.

Parents were brutal. But you would have thought the coaches were trying to win the World Series.

Several occations had parents/coaches follow me out to my car.

Come on, they are kids

I wish my kids played baseball in your league.

Our league hires kids to umpire the games. My 9 year old was playing in the championship game of the end of the season tournament when the batter from the other team hit a dribbler up the first base line. The batter must have assumed it was going to go foul, because he just stood there looking at it while the catcher went to go get it. Once the batter listened to his coach to run, he began running and knocked over the catcher who was bent over trying to pick up the ball. Having been knocked over, he didn't recover in time to pick up the ball and throw him out. Ump calls the batter safe it first.

The coach of our team of course challenges and wants the batter called out for interference. Ump refuses saying that the runner has the right of way. The ump is probably 12 or 13 years old, and obviously has been taught to never change a call. So the coach gives up. But I remembered seeing the rule that any runner is out when he interferes with a fielder attempting to field a batted ball in print on the league's website. I pulled out my iPad, and low and behold it was easy as pie to find the rule. So I show it to the coach, who in turn takes my iPad on to the field to show it to the ump.

He returns shaking his head, and as he hands my iPad back to me he says the ump is now changing his story and says no contact between the batter and the catcher happened, and the catcher just fell over on his own. Shocked, I said pretty loudly "WHAT?!?! Everyone here saw the collision!!!!" At that point pretty much everyone turned their attention to the ump... who began to start crying.

The inning came to an end, and as soon as it did, the umpire pulls out a cell phone and calls someone. As he is talking he is gasping for air, because he's crying even more than before. Minutes later, someone from the league shows up and tells me I must leave.

My son's team ended up winning, but I didn't get to see it.

 

[Officer Pete Malloy]

Honorable Mention to wrestling dads who coach/assist.

 

[General Malaise]

If you're not voting for hockey then you've likely not been around hockey.

Yeah, there's no hockey out here, so I haven't seen it.

On this topic, my co-worker coaches flag football and my son is on his team. It's a great team and my co-workers son is a rock star. So good, in fact, that as a 4th grader, he's also on a team that is virtually all 5th and 6th graders. That team is highly competitive. Yesterday, there was a game with another coach who has a horrible reputation and I've seen his act. Just a giant ##### who runs his mouth the whole game and complains to the ref constantly. At the start of yesterday's game, he brings in a player off the bench and my co-workers co-coach immediately says "Hey, when did you roster that player? He's not on the listed roster" and there was some controversy. Turns out this 'ringer' (he made several key plays and helped his team beat my co-workers) was NOT registered with the league at all. That's a HUGE violation due to injury risk. There is not a youth league out there that permits teams from pulling in unregistered players.

Anyhow, my co-worker was on the phone with the league and the other coach today for over an hour on this matter. The league commish ruled that this was a violation and made the other team forfeit. So now that coach is going bananas and it's quite the scene, man.

Youth Sports.....they're faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaantastic.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

Okay. Hockey people are definitely weirder than the rest.

 

[E-Z Glider]

Baseball

I used to ump 8-12 year olds.

Parents were brutal. But you would have thought the coaches were trying to win the World Series.

Several occations had parents/coaches follow me out to my car.

Come on, they are kids

I wish my kids played baseball in your league.

Our league hires kids to umpire the games. My 9 year old was playing in the championship game of the end of the season tournament when the batter from the other team hit a dribbler up the first base line. The batter must have assumed it was going to go foul, because he just stood there looking at it while the catcher went to go get it. Once the batter listened to his coach to run, he began running and knocked over the catcher who was bent over trying to pick up the ball. Having been knocked over, he didn't recover in time to pick up the ball and throw him out. Ump calls the batter safe it first.

The coach of our team of course challenges and wants the batter called out for interference. Ump refuses saying that the runner has the right of way. The ump is probably 12 or 13 years old, and obviously has been taught to never change a call. So the coach gives up. But I remembered seeing the rule that any runner is out when he interferes with a fielder attempting to field a batted ball in print on the league's website. I pulled out my iPad, and low and behold it was easy as pie to find the rule. So I show it to the coach, who in turn takes my iPad on to the field to show it to the ump.

He returns shaking his head, and as he hands my iPad back to me he says the ump is now changing his story and says no contact between the batter and the catcher happened, and the catcher just fell over on his own. Shocked, I said pretty loudly "WHAT?!?! Everyone here saw the collision!!!!" At that point pretty much everyone turned their attention to the ump... who began to start crying.

The inning came to an end, and as soon as it did, the umpire pulls out a cell phone and calls someone. As he is talking he is gasping for air, because he's crying even more than before. Minutes later, someone from the league shows up and tells me I must leave.

My son's team ended up winning, but I didn't get to see it.

When you get thrown out of a 9yo game of any sort, I think its time to step back and re-evaluate some things.

 

[NCCommish]

If you're not voting for hockey then you've likely not been around hockey.

Yeah, there's no hockey out here, so I haven't seen it.

On this topic, my co-worker coaches flag football and my son is on his team. It's a great team and my co-workers son is a rock star. So good, in fact, that as a 4th grader, he's also on a team that is virtually all 5th and 6th graders. That team is highly competitive. Yesterday, there was a game with another coach who has a horrible reputation and I've seen his act. Just a giant ##### who runs his mouth the whole game and complains to the ref constantly. At the start of yesterday's game, he brings in a player off the bench and my co-workers co-coach immediately says "Hey, when did you roster that player? He's not on the listed roster" and there was some controversy. Turns out this 'ringer' (he made several key plays and helped his team beat my co-workers) was NOT registered with the league at all. That's a HUGE violation due to injury risk. There is not a youth league out there that permits teams from pulling in unregistered players.

Anyhow, my co-worker was on the phone with the league and the other coach today for over an hour on this matter. The league commish ruled that this was a violation and made the other team forfeit. So now that coach is going bananas and it's quite the scene, man.

Youth Sports.....they're faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaantastic.

These days I have moved up the ladder and am part of managing the local Pop Warner league. Around here that coach would have been booted out for that and we'd be looking into possible punishment for his organization depending on the outcome of an investigation.

 

[dgreen]

If you're not voting for hockey then you've likely not been around hockey.

Yeah, there's no hockey out here, so I haven't seen it.

On this topic, my co-worker coaches flag football and my son is on his team. It's a great team and my co-workers son is a rock star. So good, in fact, that as a 4th grader, he's also on a team that is virtually all 5th and 6th graders. That team is highly competitive. Yesterday, there was a game with another coach who has a horrible reputation and I've seen his act. Just a giant ##### who runs his mouth the whole game and complains to the ref constantly. At the start of yesterday's game, he brings in a player off the bench and my co-workers co-coach immediately says "Hey, when did you roster that player? He's not on the listed roster" and there was some controversy. Turns out this 'ringer' (he made several key plays and helped his team beat my co-workers) was NOT registered with the league at all. That's a HUGE violation due to injury risk. There is not a youth league out there that permits teams from pulling in unregistered players.

Anyhow, my co-worker was on the phone with the league and the other coach today for over an hour on this matter. The league commish ruled that this was a violation and made the other team forfeit. So now that coach is going bananas and it's quite the scene, man.

Youth Sports.....they're faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaantastic.

My boys started playing flag football this Spring. I went into it thinking it wasn't going to be super serious - you know, because it's flag and not tackle. Well, apparently it's pretty serious business to some people. But mostly a good serious. I'm glad it's very structured and treated somewhat like real football. I haven't seen anything really over the top except a parent yelling a couple F bombs at his kid's coach yesterday.

So far, it seems like the league is run pretty well. While some coaches are pretty intense, they don't go overboard...yet. I've toyed with the idea of coaching, but two things have stopped me:

1) I didn't want to jump right in having never coached before. Having watched my son's coaches, I think I'm getting a good feel about how to run practices and games, so I might do it next Spring.

2) Parents. I've heard horror stories. Luckily, like I said, I haven't seen anything yet that would totally turn me off but I'm sure it's out there somewhere.

 

[Politician Spock]

Baseball

I used to ump 8-12 year olds.

Parents were brutal. But you would have thought the coaches were trying to win the World Series.

Several occations had parents/coaches follow me out to my car.

Come on, they are kids

I wish my kids played baseball in your league.

Our league hires kids to umpire the games. My 9 year old was playing in the championship game of the end of the season tournament when the batter from the other team hit a dribbler up the first base line. The batter must have assumed it was going to go foul, because he just stood there looking at it while the catcher went to go get it. Once the batter listened to his coach to run, he began running and knocked over the catcher who was bent over trying to pick up the ball. Having been knocked over, he didn't recover in time to pick up the ball and throw him out. Ump calls the batter safe it first.

The coach of our team of course challenges and wants the batter called out for interference. Ump refuses saying that the runner has the right of way. The ump is probably 12 or 13 years old, and obviously has been taught to never change a call. So the coach gives up. But I remembered seeing the rule that any runner is out when he interferes with a fielder attempting to field a batted ball in print on the league's website. I pulled out my iPad, and low and behold it was easy as pie to find the rule. So I show it to the coach, who in turn takes my iPad on to the field to show it to the ump.

He returns shaking his head, and as he hands my iPad back to me he says the ump is now changing his story and says no contact between the batter and the catcher happened, and the catcher just fell over on his own. Shocked, I said pretty loudly "WHAT?!?! Everyone here saw the collision!!!!" At that point pretty much everyone turned their attention to the ump... who began to start crying.

The inning came to an end, and as soon as it did, the umpire pulls out a cell phone and calls someone. As he is talking he is gasping for air, because he's crying even more than before. Minutes later, someone from the league shows up and tells me I must leave.

My son's team ended up winning, but I didn't get to see it.

When you get thrown out of a 9yo game of any sort, I think its time to step back and re-evaluate some things.

Yep! I told my son I wouldn't pay for him to play in this league again this year. I refused to give good money to a league who in turn just hires their own kids to run the games.

My son didn't have a problem with that because he started playing basketball in the local Upward Basketball league (which uses the money the parents pay to hire ADULT refs). He says he likes basketball far more than baseball and has no desire to play baseball anymore.

 

[Charlie Steiner]

Anyone who thinks their sport has cornered the market hasn't been around every other sport.

My thoughts as well.When my son played flag football, it took me 3 games to see the pattern; when team A had the ball, team A's parents complained about rough play from team B, and then when team B had the ball, team B's parents complained about rough play. After that, I started seeing the same absurdity in all of the sports my kids played, which actually helped me better appreciate good play by both teams.The one that has made me the most uncomfortable, however, is basketball. Like baseball, there are so many little things that can happen on every play, that means there are that many more opportunities for parents to get upset about a call/non-call, and since the parents/fans are right on top of the action, as well as each other, at a basketball game, it's even more of a powderkeg.For you more experienced coaches/parents/AD's, have you seen a correlation between the age of the players and the level of knuckle-headedness among the parents, or is it as bad at any age? My thought was that by the time your kid is a teenager, you should have experienced a wide enough range of ups and downs that you'd get somewhat 'jaded' in your responses to 'bad' calls, but it seems that if anything, it gets worse as they get older. Could that be that as the kid gets closer to high school and potential scholarships, the parents get that much more uptight?

 

[Charlie Steiner]

Politician Spock, on 13 May 2013 - 16:00, said:Yep! I told my son I wouldn't pay for him to play in this league again this year. I refused to give good money to a league who in turn just hires their own kids to run the games.My son didn't have a probably with that because he started playing basketball in the local Upward Basketball league (which uses the money the parents pay to hire ADULT refs). He says he likes basketball far more than baseball and has no desire to play baseball anymore.

My boys played at Upward when they were younger, and thought it was great. The only 'issue' I ever had was that my son would consistently end up at the higher end of the evaluations, which always seemed to put him up against kids that were taller, stronger, faster, older than my son. I know they believe in putting like abilities against each other, so it wasn't a problem, just got tired of him always being David against Goliath.

 

[The_Man]

Several occations had parents/coaches follow me out to my car.

I'd like to hear more about this. What did they say or do? Did it ever lead to anything?

I did have a coach once throw me against a fence while trying to leave the park. Apparently he didn't know it was illegal to touch the base-runners while they were in the field of play(he tried pushing a kid towards home to get him to score) I called the base-runner out, they lost the game.

Apparently, he also didn't know it was illegal to touch the umpire when he was leaving the field of play.

People are crazy. Every time I see dads getting worked up like the one you describe, I wonder if they put commensurate time and passion into their kids' math homework or reading ability.

 

[Politician Spock]

Politician Spock, on 13 May 2013 - 16:00, said:Yep! I told my son I wouldn't pay for him to play in this league again this year. I refused to give good money to a league who in turn just hires their own kids to run the games.My son didn't have a probably with that because he started playing basketball in the local Upward Basketball league (which uses the money the parents pay to hire ADULT refs). He says he likes basketball far more than baseball and has no desire to play baseball anymore.

My boys played at Upward when they were younger, and thought it was great. The only 'issue' I ever had was that my son would consistently end up at the higher end of the evaluations, which always seemed to put him up against kids that were taller, stronger, faster, older than my son. I know they believe in putting like abilities against each other, so it wasn't a problem, just got tired of him always being David against Goliath.

I know what you mean. My son was the tallest on his team, but this was his first year playing basketball. I'm glad he really loved the sport, because every game he got matched up with someone better than him, usually bigger and taller. Because of always being challenged by a better player, he got significantly better and better every game. So in our case it ended up being beneficial. But I can see if a kid didn't have the amount of passion he found for basketball, that matchup requirement Upward has could quickly get tiresome.

 

[pittstownkiller]

I coach hockey and baseball; irate parents aren't the ones who get to me as much as the ones who have zero clue on the abilities of their child.

 

[Bigboy10182000]

I coach hockey and baseball; irate parents aren't the ones who get to me as much as the ones who have zero clue on the abilities of their child.

The "zero" should have been in CAPS and the biggest size the boards allow. Nothing like a parent asking why I keep DH'ing his daughter or playing her in RF when she's usually a SS......Maybe because she's like 240 and 14 years old? Maybe

**ETA**

And add my vote for baseball/ softball-- I NEVER thought softball was this intense.

 

[Wrigley]

Baseball

I used to ump 8-12 year olds.

Parents were brutal. But you would have thought the coaches were trying to win the World Series.

Several occations had parents/coaches follow me out to my car.

Come on, they are kids

I wish my kids played baseball in your league.

Our league hires kids to umpire the games. My 9 year old was playing in the championship game of the end of the season tournament when the batter from the other team hit a dribbler up the first base line. The batter must have assumed it was going to go foul, because he just stood there looking at it while the catcher went to go get it. Once the batter listened to his coach to run, he began running and knocked over the catcher who was bent over trying to pick up the ball. Having been knocked over, he didn't recover in time to pick up the ball and throw him out. Ump calls the batter safe it first.

The coach of our team of course challenges and wants the batter called out for interference. Ump refuses saying that the runner has the right of way. The ump is probably 12 or 13 years old, and obviously has been taught to never change a call. So the coach gives up. But I remembered seeing the rule that any runner is out when he interferes with a fielder attempting to field a batted ball in print on the league's website. I pulled out my iPad, and low and behold it was easy as pie to find the rule. So I show it to the coach, who in turn takes my iPad on to the field to show it to the ump.

He returns shaking his head, and as he hands my iPad back to me he says the ump is now changing his story and says no contact between the batter and the catcher happened, and the catcher just fell over on his own. Shocked, I said pretty loudly "WHAT?!?! Everyone here saw the collision!!!!" At that point pretty much everyone turned their attention to the ump... who began to start crying.

The inning came to an end, and as soon as it did, the umpire pulls out a cell phone and calls someone. As he is talking he is gasping for air, because he's crying even more than before. Minutes later, someone from the league shows up and tells me I must leave.

My son's team ended up winning, but I didn't get to see it.

I was head of the officiating crews(8 guys).....I was all of 16/17