Parents place in Childrens' sports

[Gromnir]

eldar were probably being a jackarse... but maybe not. having been involved in coaching of football for some number o' years now, we cannot say that we has seen a systemic decrease in parental annoyance. in fact, the opposite is true. almost every parent thinks there kid is gonna get a scholarship to play sports in college, and every team gots one or two "stars" and the parents of those kids is seeing pro dollars everytime their kid throws a strike or kicks a goal or rushes for a td.

 

is all parents jerks and know-it-alls? 'course not, but the % has not shrunk over past decade.

 

...

 

coaching kids would be much more fun, and we suspect that playing sports would be more fun too, if parents were forbidden from attending games.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Checkpoint]

PS I think you mean Michael Jordon?

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I think you mean Michael Jordan.

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Actually I did mean Michael Johnson. He was the star on 200m and 400m some ten years ago. Never lost and set a crazy world record on 200m at 19.32s if my memory serves me correctly.

[Laozi]

Actually I did mean Michael Johnson. He was the star on 200m and 400m some ten years ago. Never lost and set a crazy world record on 200m at 19.32s if my memory serves me correctly.

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A Texan if I'm not mistaken

[Cantousent]

eldar were probably being a jackarse...

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I wasn't talking about my online persona, dammit!

 

We weren't screaming at the kids. We were cheering them. Sean, the ten year old in question, was happy as hell to have me at his soccer game. In fact, next time I'll probably go to the other child's game. She's younger and they do not, as yet, keep score.

[Colrom]

Spoken like someone who's never seen children play by themselves before.

 

What is it with you and your derrogatory personal characterizations - which - so far - have been laughably consistently completely wrong?!

 

Foolishly responding:

 

1. I was speaking from personal experience. I was actually thinking of a particular game from my youth.

 

2. I have also raised two boys and had occasion to see them play by themselves and suppervised on teams.

 

3. I have also coached soccer and baseball so I have some experience at the other end.

 

4. They wouldn't be by themselves if I was watching, would they?

 

Kids do well enough playing by themselves when they have a reasonable sized community of others nearly their own age to draw upon and when they have had some training from school or from others.

 

When those conditions arn't present then it seems constructive for adults to take some steps to try to facilitate things a bit.

 

Having the adults actually run leagues and teams and games is probaly helping too much though..

 

There is merit to having the adults step away and look away as soon as practical.

Edited August 31, 2006 by Colrom

[Dark Moth]

O Rly?

 

Well you were proposing that games be run by the children themselves. Maybe for the unofficial backyard baseball that's fine, but not for organized community sports. What you are proposing, and correct me if I'm wrong, is for these games to get rid of all adult coaching staff in general. You're completely ignoring the reasons why we needed to have coaching to begin with. These are adolescents and you're expecting them to organize these things themselves, train themselves and show good sportsmanship the entire time whenever things don't go well, which IMO is just silly.

[Colrom]

I agree that they need some training. They should get that in school or from their parents. They will likely also get some from each other. If they arn't getting some training that is a problem.

 

I had two friends with whom I practiced baseball regularly - hitting and catching flys and practicing fielding grounders. It was fun.

 

I agree that when kids play together it is not always perfectly organized or fair. The business abouot switching balls was both true and also meant to show that there are some sly tricks that are played in kids games.

 

There are also some fights. I got memorably kneed in the kilzigs in an altercation during one of those games.

 

That's just the way it is.

 

Learning how to deal with stuff like that is part of growing up.

 

You know, thinking back on this stuff I realize that lots of my childhood was really alot like the movie "Stand by Me" up to and even including walking the tracks and finding a dead body - who in our case was really just dead drunk.

Edited August 31, 2006 by Colrom