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weekly font
Dec 1, 2004


Everytime I try to fly I fall
Without my wings
I feel so small
Guess I need you baby...



I played tennis through high school and never experienced any issue with parents because, mostly, no one even showed up for our games. The more annoying thing were the teams who were very blatantly cheating because you called your own outs. You could always ask for the coaches to ump your matches if it got too egregious and it was always only one or two guys so there'd be coverage. Even after four years I can only remember one time that I wanted to smash a racket because of it.

My only real experience with sports parents was quite nice actually. I was in elementary school and my parents insisted on signing me up for Little League even though I had no interest in baseball. I was born in one of those weird months where I probably should have been in the grade lower but I wasn't so I was smaller than everyone else and thus was sorted into the league above tee-ball even though I most certainly should not have been. We were all young enough that coaches pitched so that everyone could hit the ball at some point during the game and you couldn't strike out. This was in like 1991 so it's weird to me that assholes are more vocal about participation trophy bullshit because it's been like that forever for youngins.

Anyway, I was garbage and had no baseball experience and was pint sized. My first time at bat I absolutely could not hit the limp meatballs dribbling over the plate. After a dozen plus pitches a very kind parent talked to the coach and came out on the field to hold the baseball on top of a beer bottle over the plate as a makeshift tee so I could get a hit slash we could get on with it. Pretty cool of him considering there was a far greater likelihood I would smash his and and not the ball. But I dinked it and got on a base and when the next kid got a hit I made sure to slide into home plate despite not needing to because it looked like fun. Don't think my parents forced me to go back for another game.

Now I teach at a rich kid high school (getting out education this year hopefully cause woof) and my friend coaches the volleyball teams and there are some real horror stories there. The best one, however, has to be that there was a tournament taking place at the same time a middle school dance competition was going on. Her husband is the assistant coach and he was out in the hallway fixing an issue with the camera they use for game film. A few minutes later a parent barges into the gym with two cops and points him out screaming, "THERE'S THE PERVERT VIDEOTAPING OUR DAUGHTERS."

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Truther Vandross
Jun 17, 2008

My sister was playing varsity softball and i was a freshman in college home on break. Because of some storms or something they had to play a doubleheader that started immediately after school let out, so I'm sitting there with my mom and literally the only guys there at that point are me and this late 40s/early 50s dad who won't shut the gently caress up.

The guy's daughter is at bat and the pitcher on my sister's team lets one fly that hits the other girl right in the hand. It's completely accidental, but the dad goes over to the fence and starts yelling at my sister's coach. She tells him to sit down and he walks out on to the field, gets in her face, backs her up against the fence and is just mercilessly calling her a bitch and calling the pitcher a bitch. I get up from the bleachers and start walking over there. At the same time, another girl's dad starts sprinting over from the parking lot behind home plate. I grabbed the guy's arm to pull him away from the coach and as soon as I turn him toward us, the dad just decks this fucker right in the face. He gets up wobbly as hell with the aid of the chain link fence and starts ranting as loud as possible about how classless my sister's team is and spends the rest of the game sitting in his car.

DJExile
Jun 28, 2007


God bless anyone who officiates these days, I have no idea how you do it. I chat with some of them before and after our broadcasts and god those poor fuckers have some mean thousand-yard stares after a while.

chaoslord
Jan 28, 2009

Nature Abhors A Vacuum


Most of my officiating war stories deal with players in local adult soccer league, but man, parents are the worst. The kids are so much happier when no parents show up, I wish more games were played without them. I don't know what universe they were raised in to think verbally abusing my 13 year old assistants referees is OK, but jeez. "The refs suck!" Well maybe if you stopped abusing the younger ones they would stay in it and learn to be better?

I have had folks come up to me after games to tell me how bad of a job I did. There have also been some demanding my name to report me which seems to happen a lot when I'm working with my assignor. I just point to him and say "Lucky day, he is the one who takes those reports." One time some parents said they were gonna call the cops on us? Still not sure what that was about.

Haven't had a physical confrontation yet with a parent. I *think* someone tried to follow me home after a state championship game, so to be safe I pulled into the police department parking lot that is on the way home and the dude kept going so possible crisis averted?

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

weekly font posted:

I played tennis through high school and never experienced any issue with parents because, mostly, no one even showed up for our games. The more annoying thing were the teams who were very blatantly cheating because you called your own outs. You could always ask for the coaches to ump your matches if it got too egregious and it was always only one or two guys so there'd be coverage. Even after four years I can only remember one time that I wanted to smash a racket because of it.

My only real experience with sports parents was quite nice actually. I was in elementary school and my parents insisted on signing me up for Little League even though I had no interest in baseball. I was born in one of those weird months where I probably should have been in the grade lower but I wasn't so I was smaller than everyone else and thus was sorted into the league above tee-ball even though I most certainly should not have been. We were all young enough that coaches pitched so that everyone could hit the ball at some point during the game and you couldn't strike out. This was in like 1991 so it's weird to me that assholes are more vocal about participation trophy bullshit because it's been like that forever for youngins.

Anyway, I was garbage and had no baseball experience and was pint sized. My first time at bat I absolutely could not hit the limp meatballs dribbling over the plate. After a dozen plus pitches a very kind parent talked to the coach and came out on the field to hold the baseball on top of a beer bottle over the plate as a makeshift tee so I could get a hit slash we could get on with it. Pretty cool of him considering there was a far greater likelihood I would smash his and and not the ball. But I dinked it and got on a base and when the next kid got a hit I made sure to slide into home plate despite not needing to because it looked like fun. Don't think my parents forced me to go back for another game.

Now I teach at a rich kid high school (getting out education this year hopefully cause woof) and my friend coaches the volleyball teams and there are some real horror stories there. The best one, however, has to be that there was a tournament taking place at the same time a middle school dance competition was going on. Her husband is the assistant coach and he was out in the hallway fixing an issue with the camera they use for game film. A few minutes later a parent barges into the gym with two cops and points him out screaming, "THERE'S THE PERVERT VIDEOTAPING OUR DAUGHTERS."

The participation trophy argument is my favorite, because the Olympics has participation trophies.

Saucer Crab
Apr 3, 2009




My dad got hauled off by the cops and kicked out of my high school for yelling at the JV basketball coach for not playing my brother and several others and starting and playing nearly the whole game his crappy son instead. While this was absolutely true and him and his brother, the varsity coach, ran off a lot of potential players for this reason, my dad definitely did not go about airing his complaints the right way.

iwentdoodie
Apr 29, 2005

🤗YOU'RE WELCOME🤗
When I was 11 I was backed into a corner in a penalty box by a 40+ year old man. Why? Because his poo poo head son, who had been hacking and slashing our team the entire game, took a run at me.

I was a fat gently caress, but was decent on D, and I saw him charging me. So I ducked. Basically I made him check himself, and he ended up flying in to the boards and knocking himself silly.

We both got called for roughing (which was bullshit) and I was sitting in the box. Thirty seconds later this dude has climbed over the glass and is coming at me screaming for hurting his kid.

Refs pulled him out of the box and he and his kid got kicked out of the building and the league.

Also as a 16 year old ref after an inline game, I got smacked in the face with a purse for calling a penalty on this mom's snowflake kid because he cross checked someone in the throat. Somehow that was my fault, and I got to feel her rage as soon as I left the rink.

RC and Moon Pie
May 5, 2011

I cover sports, mostly preps.

Baseball parents are the worst. There isn't ice in the area, so I've never seen hockey parents, but there is baseball and they are far and away the worst.

During a state tournament two years ago, one mom took exception to the very aggressive (yet clean) way the opposition was playing. Her team's pitcher plunked a hitter. She yelled that he should have hit him in the head. Then repeated it a few times over the next few innings.

At another playoff game, a team's catcher got so aggravated by his own father riding him, he held his hand up to tell him to stop between pitches. Daddy yelled at him, but kept quiet after that.

I was interviewing this 90-year-old coach about some of his experiences. He had to be led out of town with a police escort once in the 1950s. Seems the opposing fans didn't care for him stall balling his way to victory during a high school basketball game.

It's become a particular pet peeve to see parents wearing these shirts lately: "Some people wait all their lives to meet their favorite [sport] player. I'm raising mine."

yellowcar
Feb 14, 2010

Greg Brock posted:

It's well-documented that at 14 years of age, Gretzky left the town he was born in and lived in all of his life up to that point because he was usually getting booed and verbally harassed by jealous parents.

Also Brantford, Ontario is a shithole and no one should have to live there if they can help it.

glynnenstein
Feb 18, 2014


I topped out at glory-starved Div II college hockey where the post-game/practice beer source was the most challenging issue to gameplan. I did, however, play with some actually really good guys at the prep level in the DC area, so it's a welcome miracle that I didn't endure or witness abuse from the politico 1%ers bankrolling my classmates' DUI habits. My own father, a genuinely good guy, is still pretty vague on most of the rules of the sport, so he made it out to every game to shout amusingly generic support. While focused in the heat of play I was never aware of his cheering outside of one particular attempt to check an opponent. As a 6'2" 180 pound 17 year old I usually had size in my advantage, but physics won out when I shouldered an off-season left tackle who had to be tipping 275. As I literally flew through the air toward my own net I heard my dad's distinctive voice: "Oh wow!" followed by his guffaws as the laughter spread through the other spectators. It's one of my fondest memories of high school.

On the other hand, we imported some coaches in the style of "Iron" Mike Keenan from the rural backwaters of Saskatchewan over the years. One major-junior washout we borrowed from the Canadian embassy spotted real potential in our freshman goaltender when he saved some of his 90mph slapshots during a show-off session. He spent the season hammering terrifying missiles at the kid when he wasn't berating him to skate faster in our sprints; I suppose the extra pads weren't a good excuse for a lack of speed. I can be pretty confident this coach succeeded in removing fag passes from our game along with tendencies to act like fuckin' pussies when we had our bell rung. Not clear if he can take credit for that goaltender quitting the team and running away from home later on; adolescence is a complicated time, eh.

El Gallinero Gros
Mar 17, 2010

glynnenstein posted:

I topped out at glory-starved Div II college hockey where the post-game/practice beer source was the most challenging issue to gameplan. I did, however, play with some actually really good guys at the prep level in the DC area, so it's a welcome miracle that I didn't endure or witness abuse from the politico 1%ers bankrolling my classmates' DUI habits. My own father, a genuinely good guy, is still pretty vague on most of the rules of the sport, so he made it out to every game to shout amusingly generic support. While focused in the heat of play I was never aware of his cheering outside of one particular attempt to check an opponent. As a 6'2" 180 pound 17 year old I usually had size in my advantage, but physics won out when I shouldered an off-season left tackle who had to be tipping 275. As I literally flew through the air toward my own net I heard my dad's distinctive voice: "Oh wow!" followed by his guffaws as the laughter spread through the other spectators. It's one of my fondest memories of high school.

On the other hand, we imported some coaches in the style of "Iron" Mike Keenan from the rural backwaters of Saskatchewan over the years. One major-junior washout we borrowed from the Canadian embassy spotted real potential in our freshman goaltender when he saved some of his 90mph slapshots during a show-off session. He spent the season hammering terrifying missiles at the kid when he wasn't berating him to skate faster in our sprints; I suppose the extra pads weren't a good excuse for a lack of speed. I can be pretty confident this coach succeeded in removing fag passes from our game along with tendencies to act like fuckin' pussies when we had our bell rung. Not clear if he can take credit for that goaltender quitting the team and running away from home later on; adolescence is a complicated time, eh.

This is a fabulous sentence, goddamn.

DJExile
Jun 28, 2007


glynnenstein posted:

On the other hand, we imported some coaches in the style of "Iron" Mike Keenan from the rural backwaters of Saskatchewan over the years. One major-junior washout we borrowed from the Canadian embassy spotted real potential in our freshman goaltender when he saved some of his 90mph slapshots during a show-off session. He spent the season hammering terrifying missiles at the kid when he wasn't berating him to skate faster in our sprints; I suppose the extra pads weren't a good excuse for a lack of speed. I can be pretty confident this coach succeeded in removing fag passes from our game along with tendencies to act like fuckin' pussies when we had our bell rung. Not clear if he can take credit for that goaltender quitting the team and running away from home later on; adolescence is a complicated time, eh.

jesus christ :stare:

Levitate
Sep 30, 2005

randy newman voice

YOU'VE GOT A LAFRENIÈRE IN ME
fag passes, hah wow never heard that one

Rotten Cookies
Nov 11, 2008

gosh! i like both the islanders and the rangers!!! :^)

That coaches name?

Al Iafrate.

DJExile
Jun 28, 2007


Fantastic article on Syracuse.com about high school coaches having to deal both with jackass parents, and administrations that never seem to back them

Deus Ex Macklemore
Jul 2, 2004


Zelensky's Zealots

Are you in CNY or did you just happen upon this?

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DJExile
Jun 28, 2007


Flyinglemur posted:

Are you in CNY or did you just happen upon this?

Happened upon it, I'm in Ohio.

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