Funny, Yet Plausible Parent-Coach Interaction

[GophersInIowa]

 

[Gophs24]

LOL!! this is exactly what is going through most coaches heads!!

kudos to the people that made this

 

[short ornery norwegian]

I witnessed an incident a few years back.

HS game had just concluded. fans leaving gym. coach of visiting team is approached by parents of a bench player outside the locker room. parents seem upset. I was not trying to snoop but had to go by them to get to the exit. and as I passed, I heard the Coach say with a fairly loud voice - "I am not going to talk to you about playing time!"

I spent 35 years covering HS sports for local newspapers and radio stations. In the last 10 years or so, I had more than one coach tell me off the record that the parents were getting harder to deal with.

another story - and I swear this is true: Dad in small town had two sons on the local baseball team. one son played a lot, the other rode the bench. Dad was furious the other son wasn't playing. He ran for school board and told people openly that if he got elected, he was going to get rid of the baseball coach. He was not elected.......

 

[BleedGopher]

Absolutely brilliant!

And it's always the same parents who reach out.

Go Gophers!!

 

[Bad Gopher]

This is great humor; thanks for posting!

 

[Gophs24]

I witnessed an incident a few years back.

HS game had just concluded. fans leaving gym. coach of visiting team is approached by parents of a bench player outside the locker room. parents seem upset. I was not trying to snoop but had to go by them to get to the exit. and as I passed, I heard the Coach say with a fairly loud voice - "I am not going to talk to you about playing time!"

I spent 35 years covering HS sports for local newspapers and radio stations. In the last 10 years or so, I had more than one coach tell me off the record that the parents were getting harder to deal with.

another story - and I swear this is true: Dad in small town had two sons on the local baseball team. one son played a lot, the other rode the bench. Dad was furious the other son wasn't playing. He ran for school board and told people openly that if he got elected, he was going to get rid of the baseball coach. He was not elected.......

the rise of parents in high school sports in the last 15 years is embarrassing

from someone who coaches travel teams......officiate up to the 9th grade level.....and someone that has worked my fair share of games in the last 4 years doing shotclock for select high school basketball games......its truly sad what the parent world has turned into

just this past year......working shot clock for boys game....neighboring high schools, big rivalry game.....i heard the same parent use the term p%ss$ and little bi$*es when screaming from the stands at the opposing team....how does a 40ish year old man think that is ok?

 

[Lou Hudson]

Big school in the metro. Mom is fuming because her son didn't make the final roster on the hockey team. At tourney time the team only carries 2 goalies. She demands a meeting with the coaches, and she brings a lawyer to the meeting. Her son sits there with head down, listening to his mom rail against the coaches. Finally, her son says; "Mom, I AM the third best goalie in the school. Those guys are better."
The meeting continued for another 20 minutes, mom wouldn't give up.
In a small school, almost everyone makes the team. In a huge school, hundreds are in the program, but few suit up on game days.
I got this first-person report from one of the coaches in the room. Sheeeesh!

 

[GophersInIowa]

the rise of parents in high school sports in the last 15 years is embarrassing

from someone who coaches travel teams......officiate up to the 9th grade level.....and someone that has worked my fair share of games in the last 4 years doing shotclock for select high school basketball games......its truly sad what the parent world has turned into

just this past year......working shot clock for boys game....neighboring high schools, big rivalry game.....i heard the same parent use the term p%ss$ and little bi$*es when screaming from the stands at the opposing team....how does a 40ish year old man think that is ok?

While I think it's gotten worse recently, these type of idiot parents have existed forever. My senior year of football 25 years ago, first playoff game we scored late to go up by 3-4 scores. It was more than likely going to be our last home game due to our seeding even if we continued to win so the coach decides to put all 10 seniors in on kickoff with just a few minutes left. I was on the far side towards the visitors sideline and as we were lining up a group of men, I assumed parents, were yelling about how much we sucked, got lucky, etc. It was the second time we beat them pretty easily on the season. We were clearly better than them.

Grown ass adults yelling at 17 year olds. It was so pathetic.

 

[gwbbfan82]

Thanks for the laugh. That was hilarious!

 

[GophersInIowa]

Big school in the metro. Mom is fuming because her son didn't make the final roster on the hockey team. At tourney time the team only carries 2 goalies. She demands a meeting with the coaches, and she brings a lawyer to the meeting. Her son sits there with head down, listening to his mom rail against the coaches. Finally, her son says; "Mom, I AM the third best goalie in the school. Those guys are better."
The meeting continued for another 20 minutes, mom wouldn't give up.
In a small school, almost everyone makes the team. In a huge school, hundreds are in the program, but few suit up on game days.
I got this first-person report from one of the coaches in the room. Sheeeesh!

Good for the kid for understanding the situation. Sometimes parents can convince the kids they're better than they really are.

 

[Holy Man]

I witnessed an incident a few years back.

HS game had just concluded. fans leaving gym. coach of visiting team is approached by parents of a bench player outside the locker room. parents seem upset. I was not trying to snoop but had to go by them to get to the exit. and as I passed, I heard the Coach say with a fairly loud voice - "I am not going to talk to you about playing time!"

I spent 35 years covering HS sports for local newspapers and radio stations. In the last 10 years or so, I had more than one coach tell me off the record that the parents were getting harder to deal with.

another story - and I swear this is true: Dad in small town had two sons on the local baseball team. one son played a lot, the other rode the bench. Dad was furious the other son wasn't playing. He ran for school board and told people openly that if he got elected, he was going to get rid of the baseball coach. He was not elected.......

Much of my life is education, and I can tell you that difficult parents are multiplying in areas other than sports. It's brutal, and is having a measurable impact on educational leadership and people willing to be part of it.

 

[UMwolverine]

Much of my life is education, and I can tell you that difficult parents are multiplying in areas other than sports. It's brutal, and is having a measurable impact on educational leadership and people willing to be part of it.

This is definitely the case. A relative of mine is a school counselor for a public school district in TX. When I ask her what her biggest issues are , she says it's dealing with the parents. Some of kids do have real issues that she can deal with, but some of the parents make it much worse.

 

[DarthGopher]

I am personally glad to be almost done with this nonsense.

As a coach for an in-house rec league basketball team of 4th graders, in a playoff game, one mom was heckling our kids so bad a few them actually had to come off the floor visibly upset and shaken. When one of my players was preparing to shoot free throws that would tie or win the game, she was yelling at him to miss. 4th grade. In-house.

I had a lengthy discussion with the program director after that and we both concluded that ideally, we would have coaches, players and officials and that is it. But these idiots would storm the castle over that, too.

How did the kid with the insane mother turn out? He ended up moving to another school district after 8th grade because he was first kicked off his traveling team for repeated misconduct and then got expelled from school altogether for behavioral reasons. Jeez, how did that happen?

 

[Gopher_In_NYC]

Absolutely brilliant!

And it's always the same parents who reach out.

The text of experience?

Go Gophers!!

 

[Gopher_In_NYC]

I am personally glad to be almost done with this nonsense.

As a coach for an in-house rec league basketball team of 4th graders, in a playoff game, one mom was heckling our kids so bad a few them actually had to come off the floor visibly upset and shaken. When one of my players was preparing to shoot free throws that would tie or win the game, she was yelling at him to miss. 4th grade. In-house.

I had a lengthy discussion with the program director after that and we both concluded that ideally, we would have coaches, players and officials and that is it. But these idiots would storm the castle over that, too.

How did the kid with the insane mother turn out? He ended up moving to another school district after 8th grade because he was first kicked off his traveling team for repeated misconduct and then got expelled from school altogether for behavioral reasons. Jeez, how did that happen?

Screwed from birth or the slang version -
FFB

 

[cheeseheadgophfan]

I coached my boys up through 8th grade. The problem I see is the traveling/AAU circuits. Kids (and specifically parents) are paying big $$$ and all of the expenses to travel with their kids. They all think they are going to get a D1 scholarship out of the deal. For 98% of them, it ain't happening. But because of this, parents seemingly think they have a right to more input. It's incredibly frustrating.

One quick example, every year we would play an end of the season tournament in Wisconsin Dells. They have a facility there that is set up to host huge tournaments. Nice set-up. Long story short, I screwed up and was late submitting our application. No more openings for 11u's so we decided to play up to 12u. First game we played against a team from Illinois. Big and talented. They had there own photographer, trainer, team banners, website and about 5 different sets of uniforms. We are down about 20 with 2 minutes left and they are still full-court pressing and the coach is yelling at their kids "put it on them....run it up....let em know who we are...." Parents chanted while our kids were shooting free-throws. Our big kid air-balled a FT and they chanted air-ball every time he touched the ball after that. He was nearly in tears. The tournament coordinator finally told them to knock it off. They posed as a team after the game with the scoreboard. Evidently, that was a tradition.

My son from that team just finished his senior year of hoops. We remembered this story and looked up the kids from the website. Couldn't fine one bit of info that any of them even played high school basketball, much less had college offers. I wonder why? LOL

 

[GophersInIowa]

I coached my boys up through 8th grade. The problem I see is the traveling/AAU circuits. Kids (and specifically parents) are paying big $$$ and all of the expenses to travel with their kids. They all think they are going to get a D1 scholarship out of the deal. For 98% of them, it ain't happening. But because of this, parents seemingly think they have a right to more input. It's incredibly frustrating.

One quick example, every year we would play an end of the season tournament in Wisconsin Dells. They have a facility there that is set up to host huge tournaments. Nice set-up. Long story short, I screwed up and was late submitting our application. No more openings for 11u's so we decided to play up to 12u. First game we played against a team from Illinois. Big and talented. They had there own photographer, trainer, team banners, website and about 5 different sets of uniforms. We are down about 20 with 2 minutes left and they are still full-court pressing and the coach is yelling at their kids "put it on them....run it up....let em know who we are...." Parents chanted while our kids were shooting free-throws. Our big kid air-balled a FT and they chanted air-ball every time he touched the ball after that. He was nearly in tears. The tournament coordinator finally told them to knock it off. They posed as a team after the game with the scoreboard. Evidently, that was a tradition.

My son from that team just finished his senior year of hoops. We remembered this story and looked up the kids from the website. Couldn't fine one bit of info that any of them even played high school basketball, much less had college offers. I wonder why? LOL

Who are these people? That's terrible.

 

[Holy Man]

I am personally glad to be almost done with this nonsense.

As a coach for an in-house rec league basketball team of 4th graders, in a playoff game, one mom was heckling our kids so bad a few them actually had to come off the floor visibly upset and shaken. When one of my players was preparing to shoot free throws that would tie or win the game, she was yelling at him to miss. 4th grade. In-house.

I had a lengthy discussion with the program director after that and we both concluded that ideally, we would have coaches, players and officials and that is it. But these idiots would storm the castle over that, too.

How did the kid with the insane mother turn out? He ended up moving to another school district after 8th grade because he was first kicked off his traveling team for repeated misconduct and then got expelled from school altogether for behavioral reasons. Jeez, how did that happen?

Apples don't fall far from the tree.

 

[DarthGopher]

I coached my boys up through 8th grade. The problem I see is the traveling/AAU circuits. Kids (and specifically parents) are paying big $$$ and all of the expenses to travel with their kids. They all think they are going to get a D1 scholarship out of the deal. For 98% of them, it ain't happening. But because of this, parents seemingly think they have a right to more input. It's incredibly frustrating.

One quick example, every year we would play an end of the season tournament in Wisconsin Dells. They have a facility there that is set up to host huge tournaments. Nice set-up. Long story short, I screwed up and was late submitting our application. No more openings for 11u's so we decided to play up to 12u. First game we played against a team from Illinois. Big and talented. They had there own photographer, trainer, team banners, website and about 5 different sets of uniforms. We are down about 20 with 2 minutes left and they are still full-court pressing and the coach is yelling at their kids "put it on them....run it up....let em know who we are...." Parents chanted while our kids were shooting free-throws. Our big kid air-balled a FT and they chanted air-ball every time he touched the ball after that. He was nearly in tears. The tournament coordinator finally told them to knock it off. They posed as a team after the game with the scoreboard. Evidently, that was a tradition.

My son from that team just finished his senior year of hoops. We remembered this story and looked up the kids from the website. Couldn't fine one bit of info that any of them even played high school basketball, much less had college offers. I wonder why? LOL

Excellent take.

It is big $$$$$ business, I believe somewhere north of $15B last I checked. It is probably even higher now.

In my son's last year of club basketball (not AAU), we had AAU teams coming into our rec league tournaments to "tune up" for their real games. In other words, they were entering tournaments so they could have live-fire scrimmages against inferior teams, most of which were formed maybe a month before, while these teams had been playing together for years. They would do the same thing - trash talk, whoop and holler like caged animals in heat, work on their "brand" all while up by 25-30 points or more. Shame on the tournament directors for even letting teams like that in, but they were after the money, too.

I actually felt kind of bad for them, because MOST of these kids WOULD NOT get a scholarship to play basketball. On top of that, for many of them, this was the pinnacle of their young lives. Without basketball, most would not have the educational foundation or financial means to go anywhere beyond high school. It felt to me like exploitation, and these kids were being led by the nose when the data is pretty clear - around 2% would play at the next level. I guess one silver lining is it probably kept some of them from going down the wrong path - at least for a while anyway.

This is going to sound harsh, but I remember telling my son yeah, it sucks to be rolled by 30 points and have it rubbed in your face. But in 5 years from now, knowing only 2% will play D1 while many of the rest will fall by the wayside, how does it change your outlook? How might you feel different when you have a college degree and a well-paying job and they are just struggling to make ends meet but can really dunk a basketball? Which outcome would you rather have? You could see the light bulb go off. After that, it didn't bother him so much anymore. He finally saw the big picture and how rampant the delusion is in youth sports.

 

[DarthGopher]

Who are these people? That's terrible.

Look for local basketball tournaments for spring ball and meander over to one. Spend the $7 or whatever it is for admission and just bask in the atmosphere. The place will be crawling with them, especially now that high school is done and the AAU and club circuits gets huge influxes of good players. Have a rain poncho handy - it will keep you from getting slimed.

 

[DarthGopher]

Apples don't fall far from the tree.

Nope, they sure don't. Kid never had a chance.

 

[PhiloVance]

I witnessed an incident a few years back.

HS game had just concluded. fans leaving gym. coach of visiting team is approached by parents of a bench player outside the locker room. parents seem upset. I was not trying to snoop but had to go by them to get to the exit. and as I passed, I heard the Coach say with a fairly loud voice - "I am not going to talk to you about playing time!"

I spent 35 years covering HS sports for local newspapers and radio stations. In the last 10 years or so, I had more than one coach tell me off the record that the parents were getting harder to deal with.

another story - and I swear this is true: Dad in small town had two sons on the local baseball team. one son played a lot, the other rode the bench. Dad was furious the other son wasn't playing. He ran for school board and told people openly that if he got elected, he was going to get rid of the baseball coach. He was not elected.......

This might be an exemption...A father asked the coach if there was any skating skills his son should be working on. Coach response was he's to small. The rest of the year the kid lead the team in scoring, assists, was on the penalty killing and power play. Guess the motivation was the coach calling the kid to short.