Youth sports becoming parents behaving badly

Having a greater investment in their children's athletic careers is leading to some unfortunate incidents.

By ALICIA CALDWELL and PETE YOUNG

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 17, 2000

Game after game, the parents watched their sons sit the bench, barely getting to play on their Southwest Little League team.

Their frustration grew. They confronted the manager. They appealed to the league president and even called a lawyer.

One recent day, the anger bubbled to the surface.

"It brought me to the point where I went around the fence, and I went up to (the manager) and cussed him out," said Chip Mason of St. Petersburg Beach, whose 12-year-old son plays on the league's All-Star team. "I thought a good punch in the nose might do him right, but I decided against it."

Not everyone does. Increasingly, youth sports confrontations, both nationally and in the Tampa Bay area, have ended in fistfights and worse. It's not unheard of to see coaches attack officials, parents berate coaches and children pick up the nasty behavior as easily as they learn how to turn a double play.

"Parents have gotten so out of control," said Fred Engh, president of the National Alliance for Youth Sports.

In the most violent incident associated with youth sports, a Massachusetts man is accused of killing another parent this month in a dispute over a rough hockey game. Authorities say Thomas Junta repeatedly slammed another man's head into a concrete floor.

"This is a wakeup call," and Engh, who wrote a book on the topic, Why Johnny Hates Sports. "It's a miracle that this is the first death."

Some believe the upswing in violence is a reflection of societal trends. There's road rage. Airplane rage. And now youth sports rage, said Barry Mano, president of the National Association of Sports Officials.

"I like to use the phrase that sports is simply life with the volume turned up," Mano said.

The erosion of sportsmanship has given rise to all manner of confrontations in the Tampa Bay area and the rest of Florida:

Last month, an assistant baseball coach for a youth team in Hollywood allegedly broke an umpire's jaw with a punch.

A brawl among girls soccer players broke out during a game between Springstead High and Ridgewood High in Spring Hill 18 months ago. Two players battling for possession went down in a heap and came up swinging, inciting a melee.

An assistant baseball coach at Tampa's Jefferson High School grabbed an umpire by the throat and threw a punch at him during a game in Tampa in 1997. The coach, a volunteer assistant, was suspended for more than a year and fined. Another Jefferson assistant coach was suspended and a third was reprimanded because of their rude behavior.

In January, Largo wrestling coach Kevin Kennedy, angry about an official's decision during a match, hurled one chair and kicked another, according to witnesses. Kennedy denied throwing a chair, saying he just kicked it so hard it seemed like he threw it.

Every week, the National Association of Sports Officials gets one or two reports of officials being physically assaulted, Mano said.

The situation has gotten so acute the organization put together a special offer for its 19,000 members: assault insurance.

"It's a sad commentary that we had to come up with a product like this," Mano said.

Lawmakers across the country also have taken note of the trend of increasing violence against sports officials. Fourteen states have passed legislation increasing penalties for those who physically assault sports officials, and legislators in 19 other states are considering similar laws, Mano said.

Some suggest the loss of civility comes in part from children getting involved in organized sports at ever-younger ages, bringing with them parents whose expectations for success have been heightened.

Ernie Chatman, who has coached youth and high school sports in Hernando County for 30 years, can remember when parents would drop their children off at a game or practice and pick them up later. They didn't constantly monitor their child's athletic career.

"The media coverage of sports has been part of it," said Chatman, who coached the Hernando High boys cross country team to a state title in 1997. "They publicize the success of athletes and the money involved. Parents see that, and they want their kids to be a part of it."

Chatman has seen the effect of unruly parental behavior.

"All I think about (when a parent is acting up) is, "No wonder the young athletes behave like they do,' " Chatman said.

The Southwest Little League parents said their anger was in reaction to an unfair manager who holds a grudge against their boys and plays them only the minimum required.

Manager Ken Wides said he is playing his best lineup in competitive games, and it's bound to hurt some feelings. Typically, he said, it's not the players who complain. It's the parents.

"You're always going to find somebody who's disgruntled," Wides said.

Establishing a positive culture within youth sports leagues and incorporating parents into that culture are key to avoiding conflict, said Jim Thompson, a Stanford University professor.

"Coaches are leaders of the team, and the team includes the parents," said Thompson, who has written two books on the topic. "Parents are like mischievous toddlers. Unless you give them something to do, they'll get into mischief."

Thompson suggests that league organizers focus on ways of honoring the game and emphasize sports as a tool to help kids be successful in life, a counterpoint to the win-at-all-costs mentality.

"Still, bad things might happen," Thompson said, "and it's incumbent upon others to not let that pass. An administrator, coach or other parents have to say, "No, it's not okay.' "

This year, the town of Jupiter's recreation league did just that. Organizers, tired of youth sports confrontations, required parents to take a class on how to be good sports. They also had to sign a code of behavior. About 2,000 parents showed up for the class.

Locally, one league organizer has been practicing much of what the experts have been preaching when it comes to keeping rabid parents at bay and making sportsmanship and skill-building more important than winning.

Les Ambush runs the "Everyone's a Winner" indoor soccer league, which serves 650 children ages 3 to 12. The St. Petersburg man refuses to keep score for the younger divisions, and he has been known to stop a game, take the hand of a flagging child and let that child score a goal.

Ambush doesn't tolerate meddling parents. He routinely asks them to sit in the bleachers, away from the action.

"People have said I go too far the other way, that I make it a dream world, that I spoil the children," said Ambush, who has coached a variety of youth sports over the last 18 years. "I've been called a radical."

He is convinced, however, that developing a love and respect for the game among players establishes a tone that parents will echo -- if they give some thought as to what is at stake.

"I've seen a lot of egomaniac parents yelling and screaming and pushing their kids -- yelling at the referees and yelling at their kids," Ambush said. "The ultimate price is paid by the children."

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.