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"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.
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