Watching this week as the internet tried to brand the Davenport, Iowa, Little League team as a bunch of racists, during what should have been one of the happiest times of their lives, I was reminded of something my late father used to say about youth sports, “It’s the adults who ruin it all.”
My dad pretty much had a Ph.D. on the subject, coaching basketball at our Catholic grammar school, and officiating football from the Pop Warner level to Division II college. He ran the local program to teach football officials, and for more than 20 years, he stood on the sideline, watching his own three children play basketball, baseball, soccer and football.
Of course, my father was talking about a small percentage of the grown-ups, but when they do it, they do it up big. Poor behavior on the playing field by people who are old enough to know better has become a national epidemic. We’ve seen so many videos of parents brawling at their kids’ games that it should be its own sanctioned sport.
Back in the spring, there was a rash of violence against youth referees, with one Mississippi softball ump getting punched in the eye by a player’s parent wearing a “mother of the year” T-shirt. There are tales of parents pushing their children to the point of burnout and more extreme, horrific cases like Aqib Talib’s brother murdering the youth football coach in Texas.
Many of these shameful incidents occur from the sideline — presumably done by people who have a stake in that child’s life. However, the most recent example of adults ruining youth sports came in the most 2022 way possible: from absolute strangers on Twitter. MORE AT https://nypost.com/2022/08/26/twitter-to-blame-not-kids-for-racist-little-league-moment/
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