It's middle school girls basketball

The biggest problem is parents unrealistic ideas about (a) how good their kids are (b) what sports are supposed to be.

I see this all the time -- I have a friend who drives me nuts because he's always talking about how great his kids are -- in midget fucking football and in rec. soccer leagues or whatever.

He is going to be one of those dads -- in fact he already is because he got banned from his local soccer association for making so many waves about stuff and being such a pain in the ass because his older son didn't make the "a" team but was on the "b" team.

In the grand scheme of things, who gives a rat's ass about this?

If he is on the A or B team -- he is still playing soccer and that's all that matters.

These people are fucking idiots.

 

Why EmbassyRow Will Never Have Children, Reason No. 4

 

And there are parents who think getting ejected from their kids' games is a badge of honor.

 

A good friend was a very established HS basketball coach. Many titles, many D1 players and a couple of pros. Any hoo...during one of his last years coaching he keeps a kid on the team that was not very good but loved the game. Coach told him that he would probably not get any time but as a kid that loved the game he would be happy to have him on his team. Get some run in practice, tell your kids you played varsity, yada yada yada. As the season develops coach gets called into the AD office...kid's mom complained that because coach would not play her kid Jr. would not be able to reach his goal of playing in the NBA.

Coach laughed and walked out of the office(he could do that as he was one of the best in the state).

Young coach that follows in job now gets crap from parents all the time and the AD constantly calls him into office. He can not just laugh and walk out. Why would anyone want to coach in this day and age?

 

For prep writers searching for a story, I bet if you talked to several of your coaches you'd find that they had similar incidents -- hopefully not as scary and intimidating.

Might make for a good story.

 

One of my all-time favorites -- and not in a good way -- from my days of covering preps in small town America -- was a letter to the editor complaing about our lack of coverage of local Catholic high school soccer team -- yeah, the one which was every bit of 0-12 and playing in the lowest division in an area where soccer is shitty to begin with.

The letter went on and on -- from a parent no doubt but it was annonymous -- and ended with the whole 'costing kids a chance at scholarships...."

My boss decides to go meet with coach and players parents to talk about the issue and see if he can't come to some sort of a resolution.

He reads letter, about three-quarters of way through it, coach just sort of starts laughing and says to our boss "look, I don't know what that is all about but our kids are just learning and having fun" -- or something like this.

Woman who wrote letter then outs herself by going apeshit on coach in front of everybody and saying it is his job to get the kids recognition.

It was an awkward, embarrassing and ugly moment as I've witnessed as the coach quietly said "I'm just not cut out for this any more (he was a super nice guy who obviously was doing it because he liked coaching and whatnot)" and he told the principal that he'd finish the season and that would be his last year.

And that was that.

A good coach, who had a realistic sense of what he was working with and kept it in perspective quits because of some asshole parent who thinks her son is the next pele.

And that is where we are at in America.

 

That's an awful story Zag. Parents are just insane now.

 

Anyone ever read Pat Conroy's "The Great Santini?" Now there are a lot more Bull Meachum-type sports parents. Unfortunate.

Everybody feels "entitled" to coverage because "the kids work hard." That phrase always makes me laugh.