If your kids play competitive sports of any kind – chances are, sooner or later you’ll see it. I’m talking about coaches who are out of control. Grown men (although to be fair I’m sure there are some women too) who act like total jerks at the games. They scream at their team, argue with umps/refs, yell at the other team’s coaches and throw temper-tantrums in front of everyone. This type of behavior never ceases to amaze or disgust me and I don’t understand why it’s so often tolerated by our society.
Recently, my oldest son’s travel baseball team played another team that is coached by one of these dispicible characters. We’ve played this team before so we know how this guy is. He’s always yelling at the kids (10 and 11 year old boys) and when they start falling behind or making errors you can see the rage building in him. Honestly, it would be funny to watch him get all worked up and look like his head is going to explode if we were talking about a team of adults. But these are kids and TBH – this guy scares me so I can only imagine how frightening he must be to a child who has to play under him. The parents, for some unknown reason, seem to accept this behavior because he always has a full roster and he coaches not one, but two teams!
At this past game I was horrified both at what I saw and heard. His team was losing and he was losing it – as usual. At one point, a ground ball from one of our batters got past the first baseman of their team. I was sitting about 15 feet away from 1st base on the other side of the fence so I had a clear view of the play. The first basemen was a chubby kid and although he made a good effort to catch the ball – it just didn’t work out. The coach starts screaming at this kid from the dugout on the other side of the field and he actually said “If that was an ice-cream you would have scooped it up!” I almost choked on the sunflower seed in my mouth. I just could not believe that he yelled that. I got up out of my chair and looked around at the other parents from our team and they all looked as horrified and disgusted as I was. Then I looked over at the parents on the other side near their team’s dugout and I fully expected to see them all up out of their chairs with the same look on their faces too – but no. Nothing but blank expressions. I wanted to scream “What’s wrong with you people? Why do you allow this man to verbally abuse and humiliate your children?”
Honestly, their apathy was revolting and I’ll never in a million years understand how or why some people think this is acceptable behavior. Our own coach (who was coaching 1st base at the time) was obviously disgusted by this man’s behavior too. He moved in closer to the first baseman and said “I’m sorry. Your coach is an @&&^*$%”. I didn’t necessarily agree with his choice of words at that moment but I guess if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck then you should call it a duck. The poor kid just looked down at the ground and said “I know”.
At that moment the mama bear in me wanted to tear that idiot coach a new one but instead I did nothing. I’m still torn about whether or not I should have said or done something – or if I should still. Keep in mind that this isn’t Little League – it’s travel ball so I don’t even know who to complain to. Do I have a moral responsibility to try to do something here when the actual parents of these kids aren’t willing to stand up to this overgrown bully?
Thanks everyone. I’ve decided to try to track down someone in charge of that organization and write a formal complaint. It might not hold much water since I’m not one of “his” parents but at least I’ll have some peace of mind knowing that I tried to do something. I’m also going to take my camera (which has video capability) to the next game we have against his team.
That’s awful 🙁
I would talk to your coach to get the contact information for whoever organizes the league. (There has to be SOMEONE in charge.) Then I’d write a letter. I’d love to just stand up and tell the guy off, too, but I’m not that brave! If you are, though, that would be another route to pursue 🙂
Your example is the reason that I only played in the community baseball league, and even quit that once I got into high school. I wanted nothing to do with Little League because of the coaches and parents like this, and that was in the 70’s! They haven’t gotten any better as far as I can see. I’ll be keeping a close watch on my DS’s coaches and the parents at games once he gets old enough to participate in sports, and will not ever hesitate to take someone off to the side to tear them a new one.
That is so sad. =( Its also sad that this is often seen in schools and not just community sports. You so often have coaches that are under so much pressure to win who push children to breaking points to achieve the very best for the school. Parents don’t think nothing of it because its the school system and their kids should be safe from things like that. Uhm, NO! I have seen it first hand throughout high school and quit sports my senior year due to this. Practice time was often the abuse time. No parents to watch over, no school reps, or umps. We would get yelled at or degraded for not running plays right at practice!! I can remember during one basketball game my junior year of high school having the clip board throw across the locker room at us by our coach because we were losing our last home game of the season. We did lose it and ended up doing suicides after the game while our parents waited in the cafeteria at our last game party. =( People today take sports so seriously for kids even as young as 4yrs and I think its crazy! I think it is aweful that we have gotten to the point to not stand up for our children like we should and leave them to defend for themselves.
Thats a tough call on whether or not you should had said something. Is there someone who does the hiring of the coaches for the travel teams? Our parents have to go through back ground checks here first, but that doesn’t weed out the screaming idiots.
Sorry! Just realized I had a hanging sentence. Should say:
I sympathize with your question – how can we, as other parents, step in & say anything, when the parents of the kids being coached by the bully do not?
I’ve been fortunate so far in that my son’s T-ball & soccer leagues just aren’t that intense. I sympathize with your question – how can we, as other parents, step in & say anything, when the parents of the kids being coached by bully? I’m not sure what I would’ve done (or not) in your shoes.
Is there a way to find out who runs this travel league, so that a complaint could at least be filed? Does this guy coach multiple teams because his teams win? Do they win because the kids are scared to death of losing? What does this do to the kids? What does this say about these kids’ parents?
Well, I’ve said a whole lot of nothing. But I do not like people treating kids badly.