Okay this is a bit of a VENT.
I coach for my DD'S soccer team and I really enjoy it very much. What shocks and sickens me is the cruelty of some parents. They are crititical of every kids move including their own child.
One mother screamed at her daughter that she blew the game when she missed the shot. These are young kids. Now it's tryouts and all you hear is so and so is just alright and doesn't deserve to be moved up and blah blah.
Why can't kids get to play a game they love without the parents being so sickening. What is wrong with a kid being average and not the top player? The kids on our team all get exact playing time as they deserve. Stop sizing every kid up and worry about your own Mia Hamn is what I feel like saying. My heart breaks at the thought of these people maybe ransacking my own kid behind her back.
So what is the worst thing you have heard on the sidelines? What irritates you the most about youth sports?

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Without Health you have no Wealth!

What amazes me---to veer off your topic a bit--is that fact that these ball fields are open all day in the summer with NO ONE playing on them. Today's kids can't play a game unless it is organized by an adult.

When I was a kid, we would wonder down to the local field and haver pick up games---boys and girls. I guess there was organized little league etc....but maybe only the really good kids played there...the rest of us, just did it for fun, with no adults yelling or screaming if we didn't do something perfectly....or even well.


But we learned how to get along with each other without someone in authority overseeing what we learned on our own

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My son plays soccer (u9) and he plays in a competitive organization. I agree that parents can get way over board. Once a boy on our team got a free kick because of a foul and some parents on the other team did not agree and when he missed, one parent said, Good he deserved to miss. I was very impressed with the boys parents. They were standing right behind him and they just moved down the row, so they were not by him. The boys father is a local newscaster and probably didnt want to get into anything and have it all over the news.
We moved my son to a more competitive league because he was not learning anything in the rec. program he was in and he wanted to make the switch.

My 9 y/o DD plays softball and I see exactly what you're talking about at every game. I agree, it's pretty disturbing.

Selena

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God is not Santa Claus

So true. You just don't see kids out. Partly because of the mom issue of having to be on top of everyting, like the op said. Partly because many new neighborhoods are removed from rec areas. Partly because kids are allowed to sit on their tooshes and let the fingers do the game playing.

Parents have, and always will, live vicariously through their kids. It used to be you did well , you didn't do well and everyone gave you encouragement either way. Now it's I have a bigger car than you do, no wait, I have an SUV, I have a 3000 sq. foot house, no wait I have a 4000 sq. foot house, my kid is better than yours, no wait, my kid is stellar It's in your face competition and it's not pretty. Everyone is climbing over everyone anymore.

cpsfsisooi

What you are saying is SO TRUE and is exactly why my kids aren't in organized sports. If they want to play ball, we'll grab the neighborhood kids and start up a game or go to the batting cages, etc. I don't allow my kids to be put down by petty adults who are worse than children. And it's not just the moms...dads can be way worse. I used to hear it all the time when my brother played sports. Thank goodness he was good or his self esteem would have been lower than it already was. We do things like karate where that kind of thing doesn't happen (at least I haven't seen it happen in the 4 years we've been involved). I don't get parents who want their kid to be the best at everything they do. It SHOULD be about fun but it's not. I think they should mandate that it's about fun and learning how to be a good winner AND a good loser. Being a good loser is a lost art...and one we need as an adult (and many parents are sorely lacking)

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DH "coached" one season of soccer--6 and 7 y/o boys. And with some of the parents it was win at whatever the cost. Some kids didn't even want to be there--they were forced by the parents to participate. DH quit when one of the parents got in his face and started yelling about the only thing he was teaching them was to be losers. At that point --he calmly took off the whistle and handed it to the dad w/ the clipboard and advised him that he could be the coach from now on. But, of course that Dad couldn't/wouldn't because he had other committments!

At the younger ages organized sports should be all about having fun, learning to work w/ a team, learning the fundementals of the sport---who cares who wins/loses? Their children for heaven's sake!

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Mental that one, I'm telling you. ---Ron Weasley, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

My girls have both played soccer since one was age 4, the other kindergarten. They absolutely love it. DH has coached for years. I see a lot of the crap you are talking about and we hate it, too. My kids have tried softball and basketball. One loves softball and still plays it, too, the other loves and still plays basketball.

The thing DH & I were talking about the other day is we never see kids playing "catch" anymore with a ball & glove. My girls are always outside either with each other or friends playing "pass" with a soccer ball! Even when we were camping Memorial weekend, my girls took a soccer ball and there were other kids playing "pass", too. I think baseball is a dying sport!

Lisa

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there is a wonderful park near our home that has a great paved walking trail around a soccer field. on the days that there is a soccer game, you cant go walk the trails cause of the soccer moms who park their chairs, coolers, playpens and all their junk on the paved walking trails instead in the grass beside of the trails. a friend and I used to walk these trails alot and push her grand daughter in a stroller around as we walked. the soccer moms who park their butts on the paved trails prevent us from pushing the stroller around. They are some of the rudest people i have ever met!!!! the baby was sleeping one day as we went around and my friend ask these ladies to please move off the paved WALKING trails so she wouldnt wake the baby by bouncing it off the 2-3 inch drop off the trail to go around these women. one of them told her that it was 4 pm and " that baby shouldnt be asleep at this time of the day!" just how she thought she knew all about this baby , i dont know. .

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OMG, I have SOOOOOO been there, done that!!! I have a few gripes to share with you. One would be the coach who kept my DS in the goalie position, most EVERY game. The kids were 7 and 8, and were supposed to rotate spots so they get to play each position. Well, DS was a good goalie, so the coach kept him in there. DS hated it, and wanted to be out running on the field chasing the ball.

One time, we had a parent get so mad (same season) about a play that was called on his team (the team we were playing against) that he took a soccer ball and kicked it out into the parking lot. This was a man in his late 30's early 40's, distinguished man. The coach and refs banned him from any future games.

TBall was another one......OMG. The kids were, oh, like 5 or 6 I think. The first few years were great. Then, one year, DH helped coach a team. At the end of the season we were to put together an "All Star" team. There were try outs. DH was not the coach for this, it was another coach. Well, that coach had to go out of town, and had his wife take over. We started fund raising for the uniforms, etc. Then, the head of the sports committee got wind of it and said NO, that's not right...blah, blah. Next thing you know, DH is the All Stars coach, and this woman got SO UGLY. She would call the parents and say "no, no practice tonite" after we had set up practice. She pulled the funding her aunt or someone had given for the uniforms....stupid, childish stuff. And, of course, she pulled her DS from the team. Granted, he was an EXCELLENT player,but, these kids just wanted to have fun. We were like the Bad News Bears, and it was GREAT!!!! We had the best time!!!

People try to live vicariously thru their children, I think. They really need to get a life. I don't miss all that drama at all.

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Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

The kids on our teams were more concerned with "what is the after game snack???" at that age

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Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

On the other hand, young adults enter the workforce nowadays having played all these organized sports where there are no winners and everyone gets a trophy, no matter what. Causes lots of problems...their expeectations are often askew with realities of life and often don't know how to compete.

ETA: Not all types of work require competition, but many do.

cj/

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I was walking home one night and a guy hammering on a roof called me a paranoid little weirdo. In morse code. -Emo Phillips

ITA.. I coached and volunteered for years and some people go nuts.

Once a girl on my dd's team (at age 11 or 12) sucker punched her own teammate as they were leaving the field after the game because the other player 'lost the game for us'. As if that wasn't bad enough, then their dads started yelling & shoving each other.. one dad got a restraining order out on the other a couple weeks later. Good grief.

Another time half a dozen parents from the other team crossed to our side of the stands and started yelling at our group saying our girls were too rough (10 year olds), that our team was cheating, playing dirty etc. Noone had been yelling, taunting etc, that came out of the blue after our team got 2 goals in a row and we were winning..only time I ever saw an 'angry mob' of parents, That was a trip!

It's a shame parents get so carried away. I saw more than one kid quit a team after being embarassed by their parent's behavior. One mom got kicked out for refusing to leave the other team's goalie area-trying to stand right behind the goal to taunt their goalie.

Thank goodness my kids are older and I don't have to deal with the drama of rec sports anymore lol..while high school sports have their politics and drama, in my case that has been nowhere near as bad as the politics of little kid sports clubs!

I think that's one reason my kids are not interested in sports like that, they love PE but not ball games for months and stuff. My oldest picked all computer programing classes for next year until I talked to him about ROTC and he's really interested in that now. so at least he should be able to get into the things he enjoys and not into the ball game scene.

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Being a coach's wife at the high school level is very interesting. I can not believe the rude comments that parents will make right in front of me and my younger children. I have learned that I don't sit with parents, believe me, I have said a few things to parents that I probably shouldn't have but my little ones don't have to hear the negatives about there dad.

It's funny because I will always say do you want to try this or that and She just loves the game of soccer. She plays violin and takeds dance but is dropping out of dance. I guess I have to let her do what she enjoys. The Coaching side of this really lets you see another perspective. I just wish parents would let kids be themselves and not expect their kids to be a superstar. It such a viscious feeling this week with tryouts sooooo competitivie. People also should realize it's very political.

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Without Health you have no Wealth!

To answer the original question asked by the OP...What is the worst thing you have heard on the sidelines? What irritates you the most about youth sports?

I guess I get irritated at the competiveness of the parents...and not only on the field with their kid. I get annoyed when I'm sitting on the sidelines, trying to watch the game, and all you hear around you are people trying to "one up" eachother. It's not just the moms...sometimes the fathers are even worse! From the neighborhoods they live in, to the cars they drive, to the colleges where their child goes to school, to how little Stewie is in all TAG classes, to talk of their teeth whitening/foils/botox treatment/boob jobs...arrgggghhhh! It used to make me want to scream "Don't you know how ridiculous you sound?" But then after awhile I would just sit there and laugh to myself...seeing which one would come out on top in the game of "I can outdo you!" I also get annoyed that they all seem to look alike...blonde bobbed hair, tiny diamond earrings, make-up perfectly done, fake tan, etc. None of them have a style of their own...they just seem like little clones of one another...I guess they are afraid to show their individuality, or just don't have a concept of what it is. I guess the worst thing I ever heard was a mother call her son a "little sh@#" because he let the other team score a goal. With parent's like these that put down their own child, no wonder our society is so screwed up. Sigh. ~Lisa

We were at a soccer tournament in Gettysburg a couple weeks ago. The head coach for one of the boys teams was berating his players. He was screaming at the top of his lungs at them. It saddened me.

My kids have been playing soccer for about 8 years. We rarely have bad experiences with parents of coaches. I think the vast majority of parents and coaches are excellent.

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