What the hell is with parents?

Anyone who played sports as a child is probably familiar with overbearing parents. I was lucky, my father was a pretty happy go lucky sort of guy. Through years of coaching in soccer and baseball, the only time I can remember him losing it was when a soccer referee chopped twenty minutes off of a game. So that he could go to a birthday party. Thats it. Of course, there were always a few blowhards, parents whose kids were afraid to fail, who I'm sure played only because their parents wanted them to in some cases.

This was brought to mind again the past couple weeks watching the Little League world Series. Man, have people gotten more intense with age, or was my time in the late 80's/early 90's just a peaceful period? On T.V., while miked no less, I heard coaches yelling at kids, yelling at coaches on the other team, and yelling at the umpires far beyond a normal arguing of calls. Wake up guys. These kids are 11 and 12 years old. The umpires are volunteers, not paid workers. If your team loses, there's no money lost. Get over yourselves.

This isn't an isolated thing either. Just yesterday, it was discovered that two of my co-workers have sons who play on rival high school football teams. Once this was discovered, they wouldn't shut up, talking trash to each other. Living through their kids. So very sad.

I was a fairly accomplished pitcher when I played high school and men's league afterwards. I have no doubt I could mold a son I had into a decent player as well. But I'll be damned if I'm going to push him into it. People like this make me sick.