If your kids play/ed competitive sports, you know there is always plenty of crazy on the field. You somewhat get accustomed to it, and focus on making sure your kids are good sports, and being coached by people who are leading by example & so forth. But, there are always plenty of .... others out there on the field.
The boys played a team yesterday (this is high school, not club), & the opponents stood out to me from last season. They were pretty terrible sports during the COVID season, and we tried to cancel (not enough players) & they told us to come out for a friendly scrimmage, and they'd play with as many kids as we brought. Well, that didn't play out as expected. They played with a full roster, ran up the score, and the parents and kids were making fun of our players. It was pretty terrible.
As you may expect, Sam & I are not a fan of the team. We beat them earlier in the season, and that must have set them off a bit. We played them at home yesterday, and it was again tragic. Their coach walked over to our bench and talked about how he couldn't believe our team had beaten them, because our kids were so terrible, and multiple other negative things. To say nothing of the other kids and they way they talked on the field. It was really disappointing. I took the boys out to dinner last night, because really, what could I do after that? ;-) We used a gift card that was tucked in my purse for just such an occasion, and they shared stories of the on field shenanigans with the other players. Just gross stuff. Making fun of someone's weight, calling people names, trying to fight the kids. Sigh. All kids get into soccer on the field, but most kids are generally good sports. They may play hard and foul, but they are typically right there offering a player a hand up if they get knocked down, or shaking hands after the game. They may get frustrated and say "dang" when they lose the ball, but calling people names and trying to fight? Not to mention an actual "adult" doing something like that. Sam stepped in before a fight happened, and I'm grateful that Nick had such a terrible turf burn from the Wednesday game that he was unable to properly tackle, because my guess is he would have gotten a yellow card. He is unimpressed when people behave like that. People should really be ashamed of themselves.
Anyway, on to this weekend! Here's what's on the to do list for today:
- Work out
- Go to Costco
- Take Nick to tennis tryouts
- Organize the hall closet
- Laundry
- Make granola bars or some sort of snack for the kids
- Organize the freezer
- Encourage lazy teens to complete homework/tasks/chores
I still 20 years later, my daughter being body checked so hard in a basketball game that she hit her head on the gym wall, causing a concussion. The other teams coach and parents heckled that there was a foul called and yelled praise to the girl on her great defense! My daughter I think was 12! I'm sad that's still a mentality.
ReplyDeleteThat is so terrible. And, it's definitely a mentality, and you know exactly where they get it - parents & coaches who cheer on and encourage bad behavior. So disappointing. I would be so outraged.
DeleteMy son played high school soccer and I can remember a few of those games. Sitting there with a tense sick stomach and feeling anger just boil. Can’t imagine those kids lives on those teams, can it really be fun for them to play? (But that didn’t help my frustration).
DeleteMy son played high school soccer and I can remember a few of those games. Sitting there with a tense sick stomach and feeling anger just boil. Can’t imagine those kids lives on those teams, can it really be fun for them to play? (But that didn’t help my frustration).
DeleteThat is horrible. I worry for my grandchildren as they get older and start competing.
ReplyDeleteAs for me, my plans are to clear out my closet, and then post post hot rollers to sell. I don't use them enough to warrant keeping them.
Seeing how some parents behaved for their FIVE year olds' games put me off the idea of putting JB in team sports really intensely. And also other parents. It's so gross how these parents and coaches behave.
ReplyDeleteMy kids begged. They played rec sports until we moved to California, and starting in 1st grade, for soccer in particular, everyone plays club. It's seriously gross how people behave.
DeleteWe saw the same thing in dance parents and dancers. Stealing costumes, putting glass in point shoes, just plain old bad behavior.
ReplyDeleteOMG - glass in point shoes! I'm appalled. That's nuts!
DeleteWe had 3 sons who played competitively. We saw it all from bad players, bad coaches and bad parents.TheHub played baseball through college and it takes abuse from players and fans to an entirely new level.
ReplyDeleteYou are right - it's all three of those things - bad players, coaches & parents. We've played teams that had one or two of these, but honestly, it's pretty rare to have the coach be so egregious that we can see/hear/observe it from the other side of a football field.
DeleteI took my daughter out of dance because of the parents! After a basketball game when my son was about 9, a father berated his son so that my son was horrified and we were all embarrassed. We talked about the situation on the way home. My son was hurt by how the kid was treated by his father.
ReplyDeleteOur rule - we only say positive things on the sidelines, we also cheer on our boys teams, but no negative talk. If they bring up that they've had a rough game, or missed a play or whatever, we might discuss it in a healthy way, but 90% of our discussion is focused on what they did right.
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