Grow Up, Parents

This is no longer a trend or a fad. This is reality. It is as everyday as brushing your teeth or, as actor Jon Hamm says in the film “Top Gun: Maverick,” it is as immutable as gravity.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure this out – even the village idiot knows this is true: Sports parents are the problem.

Kids are rarely, if ever, the issue. They play the game with unbridled enthusiasm and love. Parents, however, are a different story.

Maybe that’s why I’m jaded by this when I really should be shocked – a youth sports parent in Wisconsin was able to get to the sidelines of a youth football game and trip an opposing player. It wasn’t subtle, either. And it was all captured on video.

The man later apologized and said his emotions got the best of him, because he did not want to see his own son get hurt.

Emotions aside, a 41-year-old man should know better. A 41-year-old man does not trip a 9-year-old boy, under any circumstances. But that’s the way parents get sometimes at these games – they get crazy. It’s one thing to defend your child. It’s quite another to resort to violence.

It mostly happens at youth games, but I have seen it at high school and college games as well. I’ve seen the wild behavior. I’ve heard language that would make a sailor turn red.

You do realize, don’t you, that officials and referees at these games are mostly volunteer at the youth level, or earn a stipend that would barely cover two or three cups of coffee at Starbucks? Even at the high school level, you only make about $100 a game here locally in Section 1; $125 if you’re lucky.

The low pay and the verbal – and sometimes physical – abuse are two of the reasons they’re an officials shortage in Section 1. Heck, you could probably make more working for Uber or Instacart. And without the abuse.

So what can be done about this? Some coaches, to their credit, have asked parents and guardians to sign a contract of sorts that prohibits such outlandish behavior at the risk of being banned from attending games. But that puts the onus on young athletes to more or less keep the adults in check.

It’s a good thought if you’ve ever been a parent on the receiving end of a scolding from your embarrassed child. But that’s like putting a Band-Aid on a wound that really needs stitches.

Maybe it’s time to send the adults back to school for a sportsmanship class.

Some leagues have even instituted rules where adults can only applaud plays and not make comments on anything else.

Frankly, I don’t know the answer to the problem. It hasn’t gotten any better in the 40 years I’ve been attending games. In fact, it’s gotten worse.

Rich Thomaselli is a longtime sports reporter in the Hudson Valley, and currently covers Putnam County. He can be reached at rich.thomaselli@gmail.com.