Outrageous! Field of Screams

When little kids play ball, you can count on grown-ups to throw a tantrum.

"Terrorist Threats"

Aren’t youth sports wonderful? Where else do parents get to teach kids good old-fashioned values like teamwork, fair play, sportsmanship—and punching someone out over a meaningless game?

If you don’t believe me, just look at the recent headlines. Last March in Greenwich Township, New Jersey, a community league basketball game for girls ages 10 and 11 ended with one angry father reportedly kicking the wife of the winning team’s coach. Witnesses say the meltdown began when a woman in the crowd began taunting players. That same month, a hockey dad in Westborough, Massachusetts, was arrested for allegedly kicking and punching a 10-year-old boy on his son’s opposing team. In June, a St. Paul, Minnesota, father was charged with making “terrorist threats” after, prosecutors say, he promised to shoot the coach of his 12-year-old son’s baseball team “like a dog.” The man explained to a local paper that he began arguing with the coach (he denies threatening to shoot him) because he wanted to protect his son from the trauma he felt as a child when a coach told him he was worthless.

Protection? Try mortification. This sort of Little League rage—grown men decking little boys, mothers taunting girls on an opposing team—has children watching their parents act like juvenile delinquents.

“It’s getting worse. We’re seeing more and more of it,” says William Pollack, a Harvard University professor who specializes in child psychology. A recent study by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota canvassed parents of teenage children in that state and found that among those who had attended a youth sporting event the previous year, nearly three-quarters had witnessed other parents being “verbally abusive.” A stunning one in seven said they’d seen an actual “physical altercation” involving a parent.

Sure, parents have blown their tops at the ballpark for as long as kids have played sports. But we shouldn’t be surprised that it’s happening more often, since the anything-goes culture accepts boorish, in-your-face behavior—especially among the college and professional athletes we idolize.

Experts suggest other causes, too, beyond our questionable role models. Pollack points to more “intense” parenting today. Everything from the scramble for precious athletic scholarships to our obsession with creating the perfect childhood is pushing moms and dads to new extremes. “It’s a highly pressurized environment and a sad commentary on our times,” says Bruce Svare, a professor at the University at Albany who has studied the psychology of youth sports.

Teaching Terrible Lessons

These obnoxious parents aren’t just spoiling the fun, though. They’re also driving kids away from sports and, worse, teaching terrible lessons about handling loss and settling disputes. One Boston-area umpire told The Boston Globe that he’s heard parents say to referees things like “I hope you’ve got someone to walk you back to your car.” Not a bad example for your kid if you hope he’ll someday join the Mob.

Of course, nothing quite compares with the case of Thomas Junta, a hockey dad convicted of involuntary manslaughter for beating another father to death in 2000 after a youth hockey practice in Reading, Massachusetts. That story prompted a slew of articles and editorials lamenting the state of youth sports, but the aftershock didn’t last long.

Take the case of Wayne Derkotch. Back in October 2006, the Philadelphia father was upset that his son wasn’t getting more playing time in his youth football league. So he angrily confronted the team’s coach, Jermaine Wilson, who says Derkotch was screaming profanities at him. Derkotch says Wilson attacked him and beat him on the head, knocking out a tooth, until Derkotch pulled out a gun to defend himself. A judge acquitted Derkotch of assault charges in April on self-defense grounds (which leaves open the question: Who brings a gun to a youth football game?). By the way, the boys these guys brawled over were five and six years old.

Even worse is the story of Mark Picard. In May 2005 the 46-year-old North Branford, Connecticut, father clubbed his daughter’s high school softball coach repeatedly in the head and body with an aluminum bat. The coach’s offense? He’d suspended Picard’s daughter for missing a game to attend a prom.

And things got so bad in New Bedford, Massachusetts, a couple of years ago that a youth baseball league for 8- to 12-year-olds suspended its schedule because parents couldn’t control their own behavior. In one instance, two mothers got into a fight in the stands, prompting their sons to jump a fence and join in. “People have simply gone crazy,” a league spokesman told The Standard-Times.

The examples are endless. In Rolling Meadows, Illinois, a father watching a wrestling match picked up a kid who had just pinned his son and hurled him off the mat. (The man said he did this because his son’s shoulder had been injured.) In California, a father sprinted onto the field at a youth football league game and blindsided a 13-year-old boy for putting a late hit on his son. In Raleigh, North Carolina, public recreation officials decided to install six-foot fences to separate parents from playing fields after a rash of bad behavior, including the taunting of children as young as 8.

You can’t blame those Raleigh officials, but fencing off parents like they’re dangerous wild animals is no real remedy. The behavior itself has to stop.

The Little League organization now offers a “Sport Parent Code of Conduct” that forbids any booing and taunting as well as the harassment of officials and coaches. “We are trying to remind parents that they are role models, whether they intend to be or not,” says Little League spokesman Chris Downs. Other localities have imposed zero tolerance policies, which bring down severe penalties—like banning parents from games—for any unsportsmanlike behavior.

Concerned parents can step up to the plate as well, says Fred Engh, founder of the National Alliance for Youth Sports. Engh says parents should pressure local recreation agencies to set standards for behavior and have serious, enforceable punishments. After all, Engh says, “nothing can teach kids life skills like sports.” And nothing can ruin that experience faster than a bunch of grown-ups who couldn’t care less about sportsmanship.