Youth football shame

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110301819.html?nav=hcmodule

The South County Raptors, a scrappy football team made up of 12- to 14-year-old boys from southern Fairfax County, were supposed to meet the Herndon Hornets today in the first round of the county playoffs.

Instead, the Raptors are at home, their season over with no possibility of a championship after a league commissioner fired the head coach and the assistant coach this week. Their offense? They moved the commissioner's son from defense to offense for the final game of the season last Saturday, an overtime win that put the Raptors in the postseason.

"Scott does not sit out on defense -- ever," the commissioner, Dan Hinkle, had warned the head coach, James Owens, in an e-mail sent before the season began about how he should play Hinkle's son, 12. On defense, the father said, "he goes in and stays in. That includes all practices, scrimmages and games. This entire league exists so he can play defense on the best team in his weight class. . . . He is my son, I own the league, and he plays every snap on defense."

The league: http://www.southcountyyouth.org/

 

Give him this, at least he doesn't put up the pretense of giving a flying fuck about anybody but himself.

I'm glad I don't work at a weekly in Fairfax, I'm sure I would have told him off something fierce by now.

 

The old man's gonna be some pissed off when son says, "Fuck Football. Oh, and dad, I'm gay".

 

JR, why do you hate the grand American tradition of parents living out their failed sports dreams through their kids?

 

I guess as a parent, the other thing that comes to mind is, "Why would anyone let their son play in that asshole's league?"

 

Because, as our friend Lyman has pointed out, I'm an anti-American asshole.

 

I think Snoop should challenge this guy -- his league all-stars against Snoops'.

 

Dan Hinkle, Marv Marinovich. Marv, meet Dan Hinkle.

 

How about: "Dad, I think I'd rather be a cheerleader."

As for the original topic. Wow. Just wow.

 

I think there is more to this story. Like maybe terrorists attached a microchip into his kid's brain, and -- like Dennis Hopper told Keanu Reeves in Speed -- if he didn't play on defense, he would die. Or turn gay. You didn't blame Keanu, did you? Blame the terrorists.

 

Here, I think, it the best thing about the story - the kids have learned something important already:

The commissioner offered to hire a new coach, but the boys would play only for Owens.