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What sport has the worst parents?

What sport has the worst parents?

  • Football

    Votes: 6 7.6%
  • Basketball

    Votes: 15 19.0%
  • Wrestling

    Votes: 7 8.9%
  • Baseball

    Votes: 29 36.7%
  • Soccer

    Votes: 4 5.1%
  • Hockey

    Votes: 18 22.8%

  • Total voters
    79
  • Poll closed .
I've heard nightmares about Hockey parents but thankfully my kids never took a liking to Hockey. From what i experienced from travel baseball and high school baseball is a dissatisfied parent stand out more because with a smaller crowd and proximity to the game their voice of disapproval can be heard more clearly to the coaches, players and umpires. I've seen some horrible ones in baseball.
This, plus the general respect I have for expenses paid in and putting work in for "athletic skills PLUS mastering ice skating (though that should be vice versa), made me vote baseball I/o hockey.
 
I’ve coached for 10+ years and umpired for 15+ years and have witnessed my fair share of parents at youth sporting events.

Over the weekend I went to my nephews 9u hockey game and left with my jaw firmly planted on the ground in shock after witnessing the behavior of the parents/fans.

The refs couldn’t have been older than 13 and are learning the game and how to ref and the parents felt it was their job to scream(numerous profanities) at them the entire game over every little thing.

One dad came up to my brothers father in law and said “if you yell at my son again I will
Literally f’n kill you!”. FWIW, his father in law is a nice man who wasn’t yelling at anyone’s kid. But, my brothers mother in law 😳😳…she’s a piece of work that I don’t wish upon anyone. Once she hears this she got all up in dudes face and it was a shouting match that spilled into the area outside the rink. Which went on for several minutes after the game while the little 9yr olds looked on watching their mom/dad and grandma dog cuss the teams fans.

Needless to say, hockey gets vote.
What you described is terrible and only heaven knows what impacts that will have down the road on kids who witness this kind of stuff.
With said, and I realize that this may not reflect well on me, and perhaps it is just your descriptive writing style, but the motion picture I have conjured up in my head of what you shared went down has me giggling as if it was ripped from a sitcom.
 
What you described is terrible and only heaven knows what impacts that will have down the road on kids who witness this kind of stuff.
With said, and I realize that this may not reflect well on me, and perhaps it is just your descriptive writing style, but the motion picture I have conjured up in my head of what you shared went down has me giggling as if it was ripped from a sitcom.
HAHAHAHAHA!
 
I don't think it's possible to nail down one sport and point to it as having the worst parents. Bad, to awful parents have infected all sports. The worst thing I ever saw occurred at my older son's baseball tournament game.

My son was 7 years old. Yeah...7. I had him in the Lockport in house baseball league. At the end of the season the league picked an all star team of 7 year olds that played a few games in a league tournament. So one day we were playing a team from Morris. During the game the Morris coach took a kid out of the game and the dad went up to the dugout and started yelling at the coach. It wasn't an enclosed dugout and only a fence separated the two.

Things cooled off...I thought. But after the game I was in the parking lot with my son and I saw that dad and the coach arguing to the point where I thought I was going to see a fight. That didn't happen because the dad pulled a gun on the coach. The coach talked that psycho off the ledge and shortly afterwards they left. I wouldn't bring it up if I didn't see it for myself. That happened in the summer of 1994. So, this stuff isn't new. There just seems to be more of it. Maybe because everyone has a phone with video capabilities.
 
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A couple of things:

1. A lot of older coaches and administrators that have not developed with the times. It would be like if every basketball coach still used the Bobby Knight handbook on discipline. Personally I do think it has swung a little bit too far with how kids are treated like fragile glass but clearly the style from the 70s/80s is not acceptable anymore. Tom Izzoa quotes after the Northwestern game last night were a perfect example.
So rather than coaches putting expectations on their players and parents and then enforcing them, we'd rather have everyone at any game out of control crazy? Knight and Izzo never hesitated to call out the fans either. All behavior today should be sanctioned by only those complaining on message boards rather than directly by those in charge? We are the only righteous folks involved with sport?

Each coach has their own style and I have been at high school baseball games where the coach has confronted the fans as to their comments to the umpires and the poor behavior immediately ceased. Yes, there are coaches that get out of line just like the parents but perhaps the IHSA rather than merely having a mascot for good sportsmanship should offer refs, umpires, coaches and administrators a little guidance in just how to address unacceptable behavior from unruly people.

The parents need to be informed before the season begins that there are standards of behavior for their child and for them and it will be enforced. The fear of confronting an unreasonable parent seems to be guiding our approach to the problem rather than actually having an expectation of proper behavior. The failure to address the problem in the sports that one must continually be paying for the player to play unless led by people of character will always have those problems. Unacceptable behavior should lead to sanctions.

Caveat emptor
.
 
Would it be a cheap shot to say parents in Hinsdale?
In my experience, while Hinsdale area parents may be vocal, most of the time it’s not in front off other parents - and I’ve never seen it come close to physical. Most of the time it’s background politics… as everyone is concerned about name and reputation. It’s a rather small world.
 
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In my experience, while Hinsdale area parents may be vocal, most of the time it’s not in front off other parents - and I’ve never seen it come close to physical. Most of the time it’s background politics… as everyone is concerned about name and reputation. It’s a rather small world.
So, it's not "look you in the eye and do damage" it more like "backstabbing?"
 
I coached my three sons in softball for several years and I would say there was zero issues with parents on either team. The only incident regarding football was one time well after a game was over a coach (an ex-Bear) was berating a ref in the parking lot. I wanted to say something like it's only a kids game but I was afraid of getting beat up. An old friend of mine was a hockey dad, and is now a hockey granddad, and what I hear of his behavior at games is horrible.
 
My buddy posted his seven-year-old's first hockey fight and it was just darling.
As a 10+ year hockey parent, I agree that hockey is the worst.

My son has participated in hockey, football, lacrosse, basketball, soccer and wrestling……..hockey parents are worse than all the others combined.

However, I can count on one hand the number of youth/high school hockey fights I’ve seen in the 10+ years as a parent.

In Illinois, fighting in youth/high school hockey comes with a mandatory 3-4 game suspension (depending on AHAI and local hockey board rules).

Now there is a LOT of pushing, shoving, cross checking and cheap shots that occur. But RARELY does a punch get thrown.
 
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I coached my three sons in softball for several years and I would say there was zero issues with parents on either team. The only incident regarding football was one time well after a game was over a coach (an ex-Bear) was berating a ref in the parking lot. I wanted to say something like it's only a kids game but I was afraid of getting beat up. An old friend of mine was a hockey dad, and is now a hockey granddad, and what I hear of his behavior at games is horrible.
I have a sneaky suspicion on who that is.
 
I coached my three sons in softball for several years and I would say there was zero issues with parents on either team. The only incident regarding football was one time well after a game was over a coach (an ex-Bear) was berating a ref in the parking lot. I wanted to say something like it's only a kids game but I was afraid of getting beat up. An old friend of mine was a hockey dad, and is now a hockey granddad, and what I hear of his behavior at games is horrible.
Youth boys softball is a new one for me.
 
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