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Worst parents?

Lacrosse is still right up there and I’ll explain why. It’s a chirpy sport by nature like baseball so the kids are constantly talking to each other. You have a stick in your hand aka a weapon and Midwest refs don’t know the game well enough so slashes are usually allowed while good physical body play is penalized. Big kids regularly pummel small kids in space which then draws the ire of the parents who chose lacrosse because it was “safer” than football. Finally no one attends these games so they seat the fans on the same side opposite the players benches and you can hear every little comment. Still the only sport where I witnessed a mom try to push another mom down the bleachers after a loss. Yikes.
 
As someone who has coached many levels of sports, I think it varies by sports and club/school

Elementary (under 12)
travel: wrestling (it isn't coach)
school: football

Middle school (12-15)
travel: wrestling, boys lax
School: boys basketball

HIghschool (15+)
travel: baseball, 7v7 football
School: girls soccer, girls basketball, girls lacrosse
 
I feel like in my experience a lot of the worst parents are those who never played a varsity sport at the high school level. Actually, a couple that come to mind I grew up with didn't even play a sport past about 6th grade.
This is so true. I’ve had this theory for wrestling parents. Anyone who didn’t have athletic success makes the worst wrestling parent. Too much pressure, can’t control themselves, screaming at refs, coaches and their kid of course
 
No matter the gender, no matter the sport, it starts on the field...



spreads to the stands...



and filters down to the parents and kids.

 
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I agree with eagles 2k3 on a very important point. It was definitely the parents who didn't play sports or who had very little experience on the field, court, ice., etc. who were, by far, the worst parents.

With that said, I don't know if it has gotten worse in the past 15 years or so. But my kids played, baseball, softball, volleyball, football and basketball in youth and HS sports with two of them going onto college to play football, baseball and softball. I haven't seen or coached in that world for at least 15 years but did from 1993 - 2010. I assume parents, in reading the posts here that nothing has changed much.

When they were little and in youth sports there were some parents who were clueless. But with our oldest the parents really weren't that bad at all. With second oldest the parents were bad on certain teams and not so bad on others. The baseball parents were clueless and bad but in basketball and football they weren't that bad.

The parents on my third oldest were bad in baseball till we took him off one team, put him on another, and those parents were pretty much the same. Basketball parents weren't that bad and the football parents were pretty good in his grade in HS. But the grade older than him had a slew of real a-holes. Glad when their kids, and they moved on.

The youngest had pretty good parents for basketball and volleyball. Softball parents were good till that one got to be 10 and we put that one on another team. Those parents were ridiculous at times. Saw a couple fights in those years.

But I just remembered when my second oldest was playing baseball, that one was on an 8 year old "all star" team. We were playing against the Morris 8 year old team. The coach on that team took a kid off the field in the middle of an inning because the kid made a couple errors. Soon after I could see the kid's dad saying something to the coach through the fence of the bench. After the game we saw those two arguing from across the parking lot. The dad of the kid pulled a gun on the coach. He didn't pull the trigger, but I stopped in my tracks and was wondering, WTF!

Overall on a scale of 1 - 10 with 10 being the best, I would say the parents were maybe five and a half or six. There were a few who were terrible, but nowhere near the majority.
 
As someone who has coached many levels of sports, I think it varies by sports and club/school

Elementary (under 12)
travel: wrestling (it isn't coach)
school: football

Middle school (12-15)
travel: wrestling, boys lax
School: boys basketball

HIghschool (15+)
travel: baseball, 7v7 football
School: girls soccer, girls basketball, girls lacrosse
Parents actually get chippy about fake football (7 on 7)???
 
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