(WWJ) – If you were to drive past a soccer field or baseball diamond this time of year, chances are you’d see kids out there playing. And as those sports and countless others continue into the summer with rec leagues and travel teams, chances are you may see some out-of-line parents.
Over the weekend a video showcasing one of those parents went viral on social media, as a parent at a youth basketball game in Fort Wayne, Indiana got into an argument with a referee that quickly devolved into chaos. That’s sadly not the first – or last – instance of a parent fighting with refs or other adults.
That video got WWJ’s Zach Clark thinking: why do so many parents go crazy over youth sports, and how does that behavior impact officials? On a new Daily J podcast, he spoke with some experts to get some answers.
Geoff Kimmerly, Director of Communications for the Michigan High School Athletic Association, says the MHSAA often hears from officials who have had bad run-ins with spectators.
“The biggest reason that we hear from these officials is the behavior of adult spectators,” Kimmerly said. “We have the expectation out there for some reason that officials are not human beings, that they are not going to make mistakes, and by the way they’re gonna walk right into a game and know everything there is to know about that sport and how to officiate it and be able to see everything that’s happening.”
Oftentimes, Kimmerly says, the people who criticize refs the most “don’t know the rules themselves,” and certainly haven’t received the same training.
As with most industries these days, the likes of the MHSAA and other sports organizations across the country are dealing with staffing shortages when it comes to officials. Kimmerly says officiating numbers are way down, thanks in part to such spectators.
As for how bad behavior impacts the kids, Dr. Eric Herman, a clinical psychologist at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit, says it can make some kids not want to play at all.
“They would be more embarrassed of going to the field and what other people think of their parents and their family and want to avoid that altogether,” Herman said. “It could ruin sports for some kids – if kids were anxious, it would make them even more anxious. And the opposite, if kids were aggressive and they saw their parents acting that way, then maybe they would get the idea that that’s exactly how you handle things.”
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