Out of control sports parents have become an epidemic, but one south Jersey Township has come up with a solution: take part, or take off.
The Little League board in Deptford Township, New Jersey – just outside Philadelphia – has passed a resolution that if a parent gets a strike for unruly behavior towards umpires, they will be given two choices: umpire three games, or be banned from all games.
How much does this topic resonate? Well, the story was published in the Washington Post, and Grant & Danny – the latter, especially – had a field day with the topic during a short post-Nationals show on Thursday.
“If you’d like to come up and be a jackass, and do anything but thank the umpire for his or her time, you’ve got to do it,” Danny said. “This is what I advocated for my wife while she was on a parent-teacher board where everyone would complain constantly – I told her that the first person that complained, I’d tell them ‘you do it, I step down, you come to every meeting and get yelled at.’ You yell at an umpire? You do it. Here’s your clicker. Man, I love this SO much.”
Grant Paulsen was once a youth soccer official, so he understands the sticky situation and appreciates the idea – but he does have one a big problem with it.
“Umpires, even at the lowest levels, have theoretically done some training and have the rules down. I won’t say every ump at a youth game is good, but they’re better than a fan you’d pull out of the stands who has never done it,” Grant said. “I love the idea of a punishment, but if you just take a person and make them do this as a punishment, they’re not going to be good, and at some point, the kids pay for that, too, because the calls are off. I understand you’re happy about this, and I’m happy people are being punished for stinking, but you don’t want the kids to be punished.”
A better punishment, he thinks, is simply go all the way to the other option.
“I’d just skip to the next part and ban you from the field,” Grant said. “Maybe it’s a multi-strike policy, but if you have someone who is a problem on more than one occasion, and someone has to tell them that, you can’t come to games anymore. I don’t know how we actually police that, but if the threat is to make them officiate three games or ban them, you have some ability to actually ban them.”
Danny Rouhier stayed steadfast in his stance, his take aging finely like the creamy Dutch Gouda he references in his FanDuel commercial turn as young Charles Barkley, because he, quite frankly, is sick of your crap, terrible sports parents.
“To me, it’s a great chance at growth and learning a lesson – when you are humiliated because you screw up a call and someone is furious at you, now you know how it feels. Walk a mile in their shoes,” he said. “Now, you can be the husher in the stands; you can be the one who says this is hard and it’s humiliating to screw up and get screamed at by some entitled jackass, so don’t be that entitled jackass.”
In fact, Danny wants MORE repercussions for people who scream at officials, based on his past experiences.
“A nine-year-old basketball league my son was in, it was all volunteers; not a single cent changed hands, it was all people from the community taking time out of their lives on a Saturday to put an official’s jersey on and run the league – getting screamed at by parents!” Danny said. “I don’t care if the kid picked up the ball at one end and ran up and down the court 10 times doing the Heisman pose and was never called for a travel…I don’t care, and neither should you! I need more of this, my philosophy of ‘you do this.’”
Grant then revealed how his father was once a school board commissioner, so he has also seen it semi first-hand, and saw how “every meeting someone was furious, and the people who were the most annoying never wanted to actually join.”
It’s an epidemic that won’t end unless checks and balances are put in place, it seems – for now, you can listen to the whole segment with Grant & Danny above!
Follow Grant & Danny on Twitter: @granthpaulsen & @funnydanny
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