'Just give me a kid who can play the game'

In my experience, the wealthier the parents, the worse their behavior. They are used to getting their way about everything, and refuse to take no for an answer.

 

Swimming is also highly individualized, with a forced team component.
It almost breeds selfishness and conceit.

 

There are asshole parents in every sport.

Just as a really general rule I'd say the raging-prick quotient is higher in the country-club travel-team sports, but I've also known blue-collar basketball parents from the inner city who were assholes, too.

In the country-club sports you get a lot of snobbism, "well, we're just better than THOSE people, because, well, we are," that often has little or nothing to do with sports.

 

True, but if it was about that, wrestling and track parents would be just as overbearing. And I really don't think they are.

 

Ok, I see that. Although just about *every* youth sport has parents and kids with a lot invested these days.

We'll it seems to be a consensus that the parents are jerks, though its opposite from what i've seen in the stands. The thing I like is that the results are up in the scoreboard, so there is so much less wiggle room for parents to make excuses (Refs screwed us!!).

I'll stand down.

And it might have been mentioned here before but all those disgruntled parents should move to Orange County CA, where the Register has a full time (at least in swim season) beat writer.

 

When I was a young man I dealt with many asshole track and CROSS COUNTRY parents.
If you want to torture me, forget about the chamber. Threaten to send me to cross country and I'll sing like a bird.

 

Probably the most entertaining of these instances is when the two very different worlds of soccer collide -- the suburban minivan crowd that has had their kids on select teams (in tightly officiated games) since age 8 versus the barrio boys who have grown up watching the rough-and-tumble Mexican leagues and apply that style every weekend.

It's a hoot.

 

A lot of papers do. Shoot, we do.