If you are someone who can’t stand hearing someone who doesn’t have kids talking about people who have kids, you may want to skip this one.
I must qualify my comments up front because I know that it is easy to talk about things in theory when they’ve never been done in practice.
Having said that, I’d like to suggest something to parents:
You need to chill about your kids and sports.
I write this because (A) I was a kid who played sports (B) I was a sports reporter who frequented youth, middle and high school sports events and (C) I’ve attended many local sports events in various other capacities.
I don’t get shocked very often. However, I’ve seen completely reasonable adults act like poorly-adjusted middle schoolers at the ballpark.
Before I get into the what, let’s explore the why. Parents love their kids passionately and want them to do well in whatever they do. This is natural and good. When you take that child and put him or her into a situation where flawed human beings affect the outcome, emotions jump to the surface. Emotion grabs reason by the neck, chokes it out and forces it to submit.
I don’t know the ratio of ridiculous to reasonable, but far too many parents embarrass themselves and their kids at the park.
I used to joke to my editor that anyone should be allowed at the ballpark except parents. Just drop the kid off and pick the kid up. Let the league publish the results at the end of the season.
Love is blind, right? The passionate love parents have for their children skews their view of everything else on the field.
Just a few observations of parental ballpark behavior.
Parents are almost always wrong about the rules. There is nothing more embarrassing than a dad in hysterics screaming about a perceived violation that is, in fact, inaccurate. No amount of reasoning slows this person down.
If you are convinced your child was safe at home plate, he was probably out by three feet. This goes back to the skewed view syndrome.
When you are in the middle of a full-throated, red-faced and often profanity-laden excoriation of the officials, remember that this person has just put in a full day at work, scurried from the job site to the field, threw on a chest protector and a face mask, grabbed a bottle of water from the concession stand for supper, and settled behind the plate to earn an extra $40 to provide a little margin for the family. He seldom knows anyone on the field and is completely void of caring who wins. He gets some calls right and he misses some calls because he’s human. Often, he is calling the game because no one else will. There is a severe shortage of officials in youth, middle school and high school sports and it is primarily because the pay they receive is not worth the increasingly vile behavior directed toward them by fans. Hold thy tongue.
When junior is the victim of a borderline-at-best strike three and heads back to the dugout sullen, this is a great time to teach him that he’s going to get these calls occasionally in life and the important thing is not that a call was missed, but how he handles life when they are. But this is not the culture of the day. The culture of the day screams that everyone is a victim, all the way down to the called strike three on the outside of the plate by the random, nameless umpire.
If your child isn’t getting the playing time you believe he deserves, it is usually because others are better. Yes, coaches are human and do make judgment errors just like the rest of us, but it is a rare occasion when a kid is not playing due to a grand conspiracy.
Your kid craves your recognition. He doesn’t crave society’s recognition. You do. I once had the parent of a high school football player call me and want to know why her son wasn’t mentioned in my story. I looked up the story and relayed to her that I did mention him and quoted from the story. “Well, it’s that he wasn’t mentioned enough,” she said.
I’m a big advocate of team sports. Here are just a few lessons learned within the team dynamic:
How to grow out of an introverted shell.
How to understand that my actions affect more people than me.
How to commit to something outside myself.
Collaboration
Respect for authority
Dealing with adversity
Winning with humility
The importance of practice
An appreciation for systems
Accountability
All of those valuable lessons go out the window when a parent goes crazy at the ballpark. At that point, the only lesson they’re learning isn’t good.
Say it louder. The people in the back and several up front need this. I wholeheartedly support the first point. Learn the rules of the sport.