After working with a group of High School Coaches and being on the field with them for several years I learned the shocking reality of what they go through each week. I find it hard even to this day to sit in the stands now with the rest of the crowd and with the parents of the players. One of the first games that I attended after going back to being a regular fan ended in a loss for our team, and it affected me so much that I woke up Saturday morning and wrote a crude poem about the experience. This is for all of you coaches out there in the real world.

If Dads Were Coaches and Moms Referees!

 

If Dads were all coaches and Moms Referees

What a wonderful comedy football would be

Sweeps to the right, options to the left

Flags a flying and curses under breath

Let's throw the bomb and run the flea flicker

Don't hit too hard or touch that poor kicker

Defense cries the crowd, don't let them run free

Put ten in the box and let one cover three

Whistles blowing and hands in the air

Someone call timeout I must fix my hair

The score is tied with 4 seconds to go

Send in the water boys Larry, Curly and Moe

Don't give up, we must fight to the end

Three hand offs fake reverse pass into the wind

Line them up pretty for the last play tonight

And don't even think about starting a fight.

The stadium is silent all holding their breath

The centers so nervous the snap goes wide left

The Ump makes the catch and she gives it a boot

Right through the uprights oh what a hoot

A conference at midfield no time on the clock

A little girl screaming "there was an illegal block!"

We'll score it one point each a victory of sorts

Now we all know what it is to be good sports

Alas this can't be, all of that knowledge gets wasted

Victory would be so sure, it could almost be tasted

Lets leave it to Coaches and men from Ref schools

And ban to the stands those wonderful fools

Wouldn't it be great if just for one time

All played their position with the game on the line.

 haha very nice

I coach my twin 12 year old boys in football and basketball, no doubt "coaching the parents is the most difficult part". Just read a great article where they surveyed college athletes and in a nut shell the kids said they remembered the best thing about youth athletics was when the parents said I love watching you play and then went back to being mom and Dad. Pete I think you missed your calling.

Send it to S I

Even when my son played I stayed out of the way as much as possible. I remember one time that he was about to lose his starting DB position and the head coach asked me what I thought about it (I was the QB club treasurer lol). I told him that those decisions were completely up to him and I trusted his judgement, what I didn't say was that I had already seen that although he had great instincts and a good jump on the ball he was too small and slow to be a great DB. So the coach moved him to WR and found out that not only did he have good hands but he was one of the best down field blockers on the team.

One of the worst cases of parental interjection that I saw was over the QB position one season. The starting Sr. QB was big with average speed and he was pretty accurate on short passes, but he was not a good decision maker and his deep balls were just ugly. The backup QB was a bright Freshman with a lot of potential, he had a very accurate arm capable of putting the ball down field in a tight spiral, but he was under sized and inexperienced. He was an excellent Jr high starter and a moderately capable varsity backup, but he was not physically or mentally ready to start and play every game at the varsity level. His Dad, who only knew football from the talking heads on TV, ran a campaign among the fans after a loss in a big game to get his son in as the starting QB. Of course all that came out of it was a bunch of disgruntled fans, discouraged players, and a very confused kid that didn't know if his dad was right and the coach had something against him or if the coach was right and he wasn't ready. Not to mention the fact that the starting QB had to endure all of that open criticism and his parents had to deal with hurt feelings and embarrassing comments about their son. The next season the young kid was able to start and there was a lot of excitment, finally the guy would get his chance to prove that he should have been starting all along. But the kid still had not fully matured physically and he also needed more experience, he and his parents had to endure a brutal season of ups and downs with a lot of embarrassing moments of their own, what they did in ignorance of the game hurt a lot of people needlessly. That's why I'm a big advocate of leaving the coaching and game decisions to the professionals and keeping the parents and both administrative and local politics away from the game.

Doing some PETE_61 Research and came across this real life nugget on parents and the game.

I used to coach little league baseball, and when my team was 10-11, I had a new kid named Jeremy that joined our team. Jeremy was a left handed batter, but threw right. While he was a pathetic hitter, he was incredible in the field. Because, I already had a solid infield, I had Jeremy play first base. The kid was automatic on pretty much any ball hit or thrown to him. On the offensive side, I batted him eight or ninth. However, I really didn't care what he did on offense, because of what he gave us defensively. After the first few games, his dad almost apologized for Jeremy striking out. I responded that Jeremy was an integral part of our team's success, and I could care less about his bat right now.

About 5 games into the season, one of my assistant coaches came to me, and said something doesn't look right with Jeremy's swing. On a whim, he called Jeremy over, and asked, "Jeremy, have you ever hit right-handed". Jeremy's face lit up and with a big smile, said "all the time in my backyard when I play wiffleball with my friends". My assistant replied, "let's see a few swings right-handed". As Jeremy walked to the plate, his dad, who was watching from the sidelines knew what was up, and called out asking if he could talk to me.

Jeremy's dad began to talk about how much progress Jeremy was making hitting left-handed and that he felt that will be better for him, given the vast majority of pitchers in our league were right-handed. I responded this was just practice and just wanted to see what he could do. After three swings of boys chasing down drives into the outfield, it became apparent that not only could Jeremy hit right-handed, he was arguably our best hitter on the team. After he finished, several boys on the team ran to him and were laughing with him that they didn't know he could hit like that. Jeremy was so happy that day, when I told him he was hitting right-handed the rest of the year.

His dad wasn't so understanding, and harassed me routinely about looking for spots where Jeremy could get more game practice left-handed. The sad thing for me was that when Jeremy would have a big day, his dad would smile, but you could tell he couldn't enjoy his son's success because he wasn't what his dad wanted him to be. This is just a microcosm of unrealistic expectations parents put on their kids, which I too, was guilty of more than I care to admit.

For any young fathers out there, learn from this before it's too late. Your kids need to be who they are. They're not going to be perfect, and they're going to make mistakes, lots of them.. Your child is probably never going to score the winning touchdown, or hit the game-winning home run. But, when you're sitting in the stands, staring off in the distance day-dreaming of this moment for your child, a kid like Jeremy is going to make a diving catch to make the second out in the third inning of a meaningless game - btw, a catch you would never make when you were his age. And where is he going to look when he's done dusting himself off? He's going to look into the stands, hoping for a smile or a thumbs up.

No matter who your child is, they're doing awesome things every single day. Celebrate who they are, and let them know you're proud of them. If they don't hear it from you, who will they hear it from?

Extremely well said, Chetty.

I had forgotten all about this forum post, the comments that follow are a real treasure! I may have to post it as a blog on Scorum and see if it receives any good comments on life experiences over there.

I decided to post it as a blog on Scorum.

https://scorum.com/en-us/amfootball/@pete/fan-s-vs-coaches-and-referee-s