Dear Sir,

Shut the hell up.

If you want to coach, and yell at the players, then might I recommend you actually BE a coach.  I can guarantee you that rec leagues and youth leagues all over are constantly in need of parent coaches.  Yes, there is a time commitment, and you must possess a willingness to work with children, but the benefits are endless.  Shaping lives, shaping minds, the joy and satisfaction of crafting individuals into a team ….  I bet if you played your cards right, you could even get the league to throw in a whistle and matching beanie.  

But until such time as you are willing to actually BE a coach, then sit down and shut the hell up.  No one wants to hear you coaching from the stands.  If you know so damn much, get down there and do it yourself. 

Additionally, it stresses all of us out when you are telling your son to do something different than what his actual coach is telling him to do.  You are yelling at him from one side of the gym, and his coach is yelling at him from the other.  The poor kid is going to have a stroke.  Let me remind you that in organized sports, coaches trump parents.  So put up and help, or shut up.

Same goes for pacing the sidelines, and bad mouthing the refs.  If you know so damn much, get out there and spend some time as a referee.

Additionally, I don’t understand what kind of adult finds it necessary to clap and cheer when the opposing team misses a free throw, but for goodness sake, they are eleven years old.  Not NBA players …. jeering from the stands shouldn’t be allowed until the players are being paid for their sport.

So again, let me just tell you, to shut the hell up.

And one other note about sportsmanship —- when your son’s team is down by one, in overtime, with only a few seconds left, and we have the ball, we all understand the need for an intentional foul.  We all heard your coach call for it …. we all expected it.  Your son, actually, reached around, and very effectively, without malice or intent to harm, successfully fouled.  Instead of hollering encouragement to him, for doing exactly what the coach had asked, you found it necessary to yell loud enough for the entire gym to hear:  “By God, if you’re going to foul, make it worth your time — foul him hard!!!”

Really?  Was that really necessary???  What kind of young man are you raising, anyway?

Yes, in case you weren’t sure, when I looked behind me and mouthed the words, “What a jackass!“, I actually WAS looking at you.

And just so you know, when my son’s team beat your son’s team by one point in overtime, and I did my little fist pump of victory in the air, it wasn’t because I was so happy your son’s team lost.  In all honesty, it was a very good game … played fairly, by two evenly matched teams.  I was just happy that WE beat YOU.

So shut up and don’t come back until you can keep your fat yap shut, and set a better example for your son and his team mates.  Because something tells me this wasn’t a one-off for you, and I can only imagine how the other parents on your team must feel about you, week after week.

Toodles!!  And best wishes to your son, who truly did have a great game, in SPITE of you.

Kristie

His team had an 8pm game last night, and as is typically the case, the boys playing in the 9pm game started filling in the gym during the second half of our game, just like we usually wind up watching the second half of the game before ours. 

Kellen’s team uniform was red, and the team they were playing (or “versing”, as my kids call it) were blue.  We were winning …. it certainly wasn’t a rout, but I think we were up by six or eight at halftime, and the lead increased, little by little, as the second half played out.

I could hear the boys team, an age division or two older, sitting behind me, commenting on the game.  They weren’t being rude or disrespectful or anything like that, just commenting that our team’s offense was much more solid than the other team’s offense.   Not that the NBA is calling for ANY of them ….. just that we stuck together better the second half, and the other team got a little sloppy.

With just a minute or so left to go, the other team went up for what should have been a simple layup, and missed.  I heard one of the boys behind me say, “Switch to red!” and I thought to myself, “Well that was sort of rude.  Just because the blue team is losing, that’s no reason to insult them.”

One of the boys on the blue team managed to get the rebound, then tried for another shot, and missed again.

“Switch to red, switch to red!” I heard behind me, again. 

“OK, now, seriously?”  I thought, “Do you really think its necessary to badger the boys on the losing team??  That’s just poor sportsmanship.  Boys your age should be setting a better example.”  I would never have had the nerve to say anything out loud, but I was disappointed in their lack of class.

I oh-so-subtly glanced behind me, to see the boys who were being so obnoxious, and realized they were a team with black and red uniforms.  The boys in the stands were telling the boys walking up that they needed to switch their black jerseys to red, for their game that followed ours.

Oh.  Well.  That’s not so rude after all.

And that whooshing sound you heard?  Was me, and the gratefulness that rushed through me, that for once I *didn’t* let my mouth overload my butt.

And what bothers me specifically about it is the people who have it, seem to think less of people who don’t. They look at us like we’re weak; we look at them like they’re obnoxious.

I heard a parent from one of the teams we played this weekend (it’s awesome taking pictures from behind the goal … you would be amazed at what you hear from the other teams when they don’t think you can hear them) tell his son, “You need to get a lot more physical this half, just make sure you do it outside of the box.” This was from the game that warranted four poor sportsmanship cards. And for those of you who aren’t familiar with soccer, a foul inside the box warrants a free goal kick (ie, potential goal) whereas a penalty outside the box is just a free kick. So he was basically telling his son, “Fouling them is ok, just don’t do it in a spot that could cost us.”

And you know, if that’s the attitude it takes to compete in sports, then I’ll be steering my son towards trombone lessons in the future. For now, I’m just going to remain grateful that he’s on a team of boys (with parents) who feel like we do — a little fresh air, a little sunshine, play your best (preferably withOUT yellow cards) and have fun.
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I hate poor sports. Specifically, people who whine and complain and always have an excuse when their team loses. Even *more* specifically, people who whine and complain when their CHILD’S team loses.

The refs weren’t fair.

The other team cheated.

Home-court advantage.

Discrepancies in the scorekeeping.

The sun was in my eyes.

Whatever.

I hate when the parents act like that because it’s obnoxious. It’s annoying. It gives out a bad representation; where do you think the kids learn it?

Of course it’s more fun to win than to lose, that’s not exactly ground-breaking news, but really, parents everywhere should set a better example.

Now, with that public service announcement out of the way, I’d like to commence with the bitching about Kellen’s soccer tournament in Arkansas this weekend.

We had our first game Saturday morning at 8am and we lost, 5-0. I guess if I was going to throw excuses out there, it would be that the team we played was a local team, and the boys on our team had all driven four hours to get there on Friday evening and stayed in a hotel Friday night, so we probably weren’t quite as well-rested. Not to mention the two players on our team who got up at 3am and drove to the fields Saturday morning. But I won’t make those excuses because the other team, plain and simple, was better than our team. We hung in there fairly well, but they were just bigger and faster and worked better together. No excuses.

Our second game was Saturday afternoon and we tied, 4-4. If you ask the parents on *our* team, we actually won by one goal. A goal that the referee called back due to some funky tournament rule none of us had ever heard of …. my other excuse would be that the boys on the other team played rough. Rough to the point of dirty. Dirty enough that there were four yellow cards called in one game … I don’t think I’ve seen four yellow cards the entire year, and there were four in this game for shoving and pushing and intentional tripping. And that was only the four times it was blatant enough that they got caught. There was plenty more going on behind the scenes …. I know. I was there, with a camera. The other team wasn’t necessarily bigger or better or faster, they were just more aggressive, and that’s not how our boys are used to playing.

But the boys didn’t seem too upset. We took them back to the hotel afterwards and they swam in the pool, played elevator tag, then we took them out to a matinee, then we had a pizza party, and then they all collapsed in bed at an early hour …. like the world’s funnest slumber party, according to Kellen. This hotel, as per Kellen, is second in the world for fun ONLY to the Great Wolf Lodge. And of course the beauty in that was I only had ONE boy in my room, as opposed to all eleven of them.

This morning’s 8am game had us matched against another team that was bigger … faster …. better ….. we lost again, 4-1. And with that, we were officially out of the tournament. Hey, wait a second. Something seems suspicious here. Kellen’s team, the U-11 “B” team in his league, seemed genuinely, truly outmatched the entire tournament. And the “A” team in our league won all three of their tournament games, 5-0, 8-0, and 10-0.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Does anyone else sense anything fishy here?

Yep, tournament officials confirmed it at our last game. They accidentally switched our “A” team and our “B” team at registration and we played each other’s games the entire tournament.

Well, that pretty much sucks.

On the one hand, we can feel good about the fact we were in the wrong bracket and at least the games weren’t total routs. Yeah, we got beat, but we didn’t get creamed. We did a pretty decent job of keeping up and even managed to score in two of the games. It was a great learning experience, and let our coach get a good look at the areas where we need improvement. Most importantly the boys got to play a sport they love.

Blah, blah, end Susie Sunshine.

Is it wrong that a small part of me is annoyed? Not even that we drove eight hours round trip and paid for two nights in a hotel and tournament fees and all those meals out, and didn’t win a single game, but because they never had a realistic chance to win a single game? And not even because they didn’t win, because losing is part of life too, yadda yadda, that’s not what bothered me. But a few of the boys on the “A” team were gloating about how much better they did, and how there was “no challenge” at this tournament (as if they were playing soccer and yawning at the same time) I just wanted to get down in their little eleven-year old faces and say, “You were playing OUR games, against “B” teams, you arrogant little brats” and honestly, an even smaller part of me just wanted to pinch them.

Because I’m a grown up like that.

For the record, I don’t think there is a HUGE difference in the skill levels of the “A” team and “B” team in this league. It’s more a difference in attitude. I certainly can’t speak for sports teams everywhere … but in this particular league, in this particular age group, our “A” team has more ego …. more drama …. more attitude. Truthfully, we “B” team parents have sat back this year and watched, commenting to one about how glad and relieved we are that our “B” team boys seem to genuinely like one another and enjoy spending time together, both on and off the field. Sure, they’re always happy to win — who isn’t? — but they also enjoy playing just for the fun of it. They encourage one another on the field, and are quick to congratulate a goal, and even quicker to “you’ll get ‘em next time!” when a goal is missed. Of course, that laid-back attitude comes through at practice, and games, and I think the “A” team players and parents look down on us a little bit for it. Which is ridiculous, because they’re in the FIFTH GRADE for goodness’ sake, and you’d think they’d be thrilled just that their boys are having fun, but as anyone who has kids, who play sports anywhere can probably tell you ………. some parents are living vicariously and are pretty pathetic about it, and it shows through in their attitude. And shit rolls downhill, if you know what I mean.

/end rant.

We went back to the hotel this morning after our game, knowing full well we didn’t make the “A” bracket semi-finals, and the boys wanted to swim again before checking out. So we let them. And they made up this fun water/soccer/baseball/kickball type game, and were throwing and catching and leaping into the pool and squealing with happiness like little girls. Kellen came over to me at one point and when I asked if he was having fun he replied, “Yeah, this is the most awesome trip ever!” and at that moment, I was reminded of what mattered, and knew that win or lose, the trip was totally worth it.

They are a great group of boys, and a great group of parents, and we’ve truly enjoyed ourselves these past nine months. I’m not going to pout about a stupid registration mistake at a tournament.

After all, I’m a grown up. Who is a good sport.

Instead I preferred chortling when I heard our “A” team, who, **shockingly** (finger quotes) did make it into the semi-finals, had to play in the cold front that blew into Arkansas today, with temps in the high 30′s and 30 mph north winds. Their game took place while we were eating left-over pizza by the indoor heated pool.

And the team that beat us 4-1? They beat our “A” team in the semi-finals …… (wait for it, wait for it ….) 4-1.

Clearly, Kellen understands the value in enjoying time spent at an out-of-state tournament, whether you win or lose. It’s all about the elevator tag.

His mother, on the other hand, is just shallow enough to gain a small sense of satisfaction in knowing our boys played just as well against the same team.

(small print) Because deep down, I am apparently a very poor sport.