I know this is talked about a lot but I am seeing some things I have heard about, for the first time.
I have 2 children. My daughter is 5 and is a world class soccer player. By "world class," I mean, she is MY favorite soccer player in the entire world. Pele is a distant second. Her teams don't keep score and I like it that way. After each game, the girls would look at me and ask, "coach Fat Jack, did we win?" As luck would have it, we DID win every game no matter how many goals we scored. Everyone left happy.
Don't get me wrong, I am not one of those "everyone deserves a trophy" kind of guys. In fact (not to brag) I was on a number of state championship teams growing up, won the state 12 years and under Championship in wrestling (heavyweight division), of course, was a team captain and MVP of my 6A football team, a member of the All Decade Norman High football team 1980-1989, signed a football scholarship coming out of high school, and won a number of other awards in sports during my life. So, I do understand the benefits to winning while growing up.
What I don't understand are some of the people that show up to my sons football games. There is more screaming at these games than at a showing of Saw IV. You might be thinking, it must be the trailer park parents that are looking for their kids to be a meal ticket. Yes, there are some of those but I am most surprised by the successful people. These are lawyers, judges, doctors etc. that are acting like they have bet their last dollar on their kids team! The other night there was a close play in the end zone. It appeared our player might have stepped on the back line when catching a pass. The other coach and about 3 of the other teams parents started acting like their mouth was on fire and began screaming at these officials. Normally, I mind my own business when controversy breaks out but it was too much. I was coaching our team so I started screaming at the $7.00/hour refs, " GO TO THE INSTANT REPLAY!!" Then I went over to the coach on the other team and said "THROW THE RED FLAG!! I AM SURE YOU ARE RIGHT JUST MAKE THEM LOOK AT THE TAPE!!!" The coaches and parents looked at me like I was on fire.
I guess what I am saying is that when YOU as a parent are more upset and vocal than the 8 year old players on the team, something is wrong. Whatever happened to "show some composure in the eyes of controversy?" How about "show some class when things don't go your way." and " you can tell a lot about a person by watching them when things aren't going their way?" These are the things I took away from playing sports. It is easy to be a good winner but how you handle yourself when you are losing shows your true colors. It seems these most important rules are the hardest to teach my child when a grown successful man is throwing a fit at an 8 year old flag football game.
By the way...some of you guys may read this and disagree with me saying "I'm not a loser for yelling when my kids get a bad call." If your kid us under 16 years old...Look in the mirror and tell yourself " I am the loser he is talking about." and then show some class at the next game. Your kids will thank you later.
