Youth League Cancels Season due to Threats

[TxSkyBolt]

http://deadspin.com/youth-football-league-cancels-season-due-to-violent-thr-1736469227?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_facebook&utm_source=deadspin_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

[UmpSC]

This is why I stopped doing peewee games.  I really enjoyed being on the field with the kids (at times there was almost more coaching than officiating at the very young levels). 

But the parents (and certain coaches) were impossible.  Once I needed an armed escort to my vehicle after a game I was done.

[VALJ]

Reason number 17,595 not to do youth ball. Amazingly enough, numbers 1 through 17.594 all involve adults, too.

Youth sports would be so much better if the only adults allowed in the complex were the officials and the coaches.  And all of the officials and coaches would be on short leashes, too.

[AlUpstateNY]

Sadly, the main problem is not that we have that many more "fruitcake" parents, as much as it the rest of us have become willing to tolerate and ignore those parents who decide to behave like "fruitcakes". 

The key is the League itself, when it's serious, organized, part of a larger, recognized organization/program with established rules and requirements for coaches, parents, players and spectators and (much more importantly) ENFORCES it's rules and requires EVERYONE to behave rationally, youth football can be a very positive and enjoyable experience for everyone involved.

When it's a fly-by-night, loose knit operation that tolerates nonsense and allows fruitcakes to run amok and act up in front of their children it can be a disaster. 

We need to be careful about "throwing the baby out with the bath water".  There's a big difference between well-run and fly-by-night.

[bama_stripes]

[NorCalMike]

I don't do youth for these same reasons. The parents are bat CRAP crazy and everyone of them needs to see a psychiatrist.

[NoVaBJ]

I have gone inactive in my association because willingness to do youth games is expected. I'll do soccer, thanks.

[yarnnelg]

I sat in a Board meeting in Little League Baseball and aired this observation. "we need to tear down the concession stands, rip out the fences, put a fence around the property and few cows in the field. In weeks, kids will climb the fence, plot out bases and play baseball without a single adult around to screw it all up. And they will enjoy every minute."

[Coby]

So after 15 years of officiating, I am now coaching my 7 year olds flag  football team every Saturday morning.  I chose this league because practice is the hour before the game so it actually takes very little time away from family, work, golf, and officiating HS.  Here are my observations:

1.  Every kid needs to touch the ball at least 1 time during a game.  Every kid on my team touches it once and every kid on your team needs to touch it at least 1 time.

2.  Rich dad's have no idea how to motivate 7 year olds.  It is really sad that these obviously successful business men have no idea how to motivate a 7 year old or how to set up a practice.  I think it has to do with them spending too much time at work and not enough time playing with their children.

3.  Refs are horrible.  Deal with it.

4.  Moms that wear SEC college shirts or UT/ A&M shirts know what they are talking about and you need to listen to them.

5.  Put all of your children in golf along with the typical team sports.  Golf is the only activity they will do 20 years from now so make sure they know how to swing the sticks.

[ECILLJ]

4.  Moms that wear SEC college shirts or UT/ A&M shirts

Its been a few years since I officiated a youth game, but I always felt the moms were the highlight of the officiating experience. 

[BrendanP]

I was just about to post this article. You'd think people were betting on these games as crazy as they get.

[GAHSUMPIRE]

Due to family, work and school obligations, I have only been working youth for the last 3 or 4 years.

And I almost gave that up after last year- for a number of reasons, perhaps not 17,595 of them, but probably pretty close. and I agree with Al when he states that "the key is the League itself, when it's serious, organized,...with established rules and requirements for coaches, parents, players and spectators and (much more importantly) ENFORCES it's rules and requires EVERYONE to behave rationally, youth football can be a very positive and enjoyable experience for everyone involved.

For the last 15 years I have worked a youth league in one of the largest counties in the state of Georgia. Several of the players from that league go in to play in the SEC, ACC, and B1G in college, and in the NFL.

There is a great deal of talent on the field, and very little of it on the sideline or in the stands. The players are being ill-served by the coaches who are not teaching, or are not teaching the correct fundamentals, and the parents in the stands are ridiculous.

Each field is required to not only have a paramedic on duty, which is appropriate to assist with player injury, but also an armed, off-duty policeman to maintain order. I have, unfortunately, been required on more than one occasion to employ the protection of the policeman to 1) get off the field, and 2) get out of the park unharmed.

The final straw came last year when a coach of a 10 year old team charged the field and threatened to kill me after the game. The policeman removed the coach from the field, and I removed myself from that league. Perhaps I should have pressed charges, but I let it go there and moved on.

I started working a new league at the end of last year that is run much more tightly and I actually enjoy calling these games again.

[VALJ]

I gave up youth league football after two weeks my rookie year.  Two reasons:

1.  I just couldn't deal with seeing a 9 year old boy having to get his jersey and shoulder pads cut off of him so paramedics could get a cervical collar on him before strapping him to a backboard

2.  Late in the last game of my second and final week, Speedy the running back carried the ball into the end zone, and he ended up getting hit 5 yards deep in the end zone.  I immediately flagged it, and about the time my flag hit the ground, Speedy's mom was in the middle of the field, grabbing the facemask of the defender who hit Speedy, and was shaking his head by the facemask.

I got off the field, found the assigner at the next weekly meeting, and told him I was done.  $30 a game times four games a day was great for my wallet, but it wasn't worth dealing with the ignorant parents who would do something like that, or dealing with the comments about how the dads would see me in the parking lots after the game, or dealing with the Jon Gruden wannabes who got acted like they thought they had a shot at the next NFL head coach opening.

[HLinNC]

Your last paragraph pretty much sums up my opinion, VA.

I have worked a bit more youth this season than the last few years since I'm off on Fridays the next couple of seasons.  I've had no major incidents but have seen/heard some suspect coaching.  One of teams we tend to have trouble with was probably one of the best behaved I've ever seen them.  They are now in the midst of a legal wrangle because one team filed a protest over roster issues.  Their division playoffs are now on hold while the lawyers for the team and the league meet and try to settle it.

I am transitioning to WH so I have drawn a predominantly MS schedule this season.  What I am now noticing in our area is some degradation of MS coaching.  Younger men, less experienced, some don't even appear to be educators.  One of the reasons I wanted my son to wait to play FB until MS was 1) more experienced, somewhat professional coaching and 2) more accountability.  This troubles me for the future.

Of course if the coach, parent, and some player behavior doesn't improve, I think that this will kill football worse than concussion issues will.

[yarnnelg]

Clearwater, FL. Greenwood thrown out of the league and banned from competition five years ago, because of gambling in the stands, uncontrollable fans. Now there is a reason fans become uncontrollable, what idiot bets on youth football games? Football Officials were chased to their cars, rocks thrown as they drove through the one way in one way out gauntlet. All youth organizations were required to have police on site for the last three games of the night. The last three home games ended with police protecting officials in one instance escorting them with four or five police cars.