Game officials, unite!

[Bob-blehead]

Anyone else in here ref, umpire, start, or otherwise officiate sports?

I umpire Little League, ref youth football, rec soccer, and lacrosse. Currently working our district 9 - 10 Little League tournament. Two games today. Two tomorrow, then we'll see how the schedule shakes down for the rest of the tourney.

 

[webby]

Wow that's quite a list!! How long have you been doing that? Any crazy stories?

 

[Bob-blehead]

Oh, geez, where to begin. Shall I start with the "aww, those kids are so darn cute when they do that," track, or shall I begin with the stupid parents who live vicariously through their kids activities? Then there are the coaches, who kind of fit into the aforementioned group, but are worse.

 

[webby]

common to have parents scream and yell at you?

 

[Bob-blehead]

That is to be expected, and I can take it. What really kills me is when the kids get yelled at for making a mistake. I don't mind the ones who are intense, and expect the kids to keep their heads in the game. What I don't like is when the parents or coaches belittle the kids with their yelling, when you can tell that the kid feels bad enough about it already.

I expect the adults to be the role models of good sportsmanship. And usually, they are. But you get the few bad apples.

Case in point, the other day in a 9 - 10 yr. old Little League game, the coaches of one team were up by 20-some runs in the fourth inning. Well, in LL, there is a mercy rule in place: 10-runs at the end of the fourth inning, or three and a half if the home team is ahead. This team was the "visiting" team, and so the home team (who was losing), had to bad in the bottom of the fourth. With this huge lead, these "adults" kept sending their players around the bases on passed balls and other errors that kids of this age make. There was absolutely no need for them to do this to the other team. The final score was something like 34 - 7. Oh, my wife was P.O.'d when I told her about it. For the life of me, I don't know why three grown men would doing this was a good thing. It didn't teach their players anything positive. I was glad to hear that the coaches were called into an impromptu meeting with the acting district administrator, where they lost about 10 pounds off of each of their backsides.

 

[webby]

I've seen parents yell/belittle their kids for hours while "training" them in public places. Like you said, you can tell the kid is already upset over their mistake (sometimes crying). It didn't change the parents behavior. I don't get some people.