Jen's Column / Sports Parents

Hola! This is the "replacement column" I wrote for last week's edition of the P-B. (You can see the original column posted below.) I was feeling a little pissy about having to write an entirely new column at the last minute... and it comes out in the subject matter. :)

Oh, also -- when the P-B ran this replacement column, they edited out all but the first sentence of the first paragraph. Apparently, writing ANYTHING about cars is too controversial. Sheesh.

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I had a column all lined up for this week. It was about buying a new car — which I was forced to do last week when my van died — and how that whole process freaks me out. In the end, the car thing worked out (I dig my new CR-V and Ryan, the very patient salesman who sold it to me). The column, on the other hand, didn't.

Onto Plan B. "What can I write about at the last minute?" I asked my husband as I stared at my laptop's blank screen.

"Legos," he answered, pouring a bag of popcorn into a large plastic bowl for movie night. "Write about how our lives revolve around Legos. How they're under our feet, in our food, in our dreams." Then, to make his point, he picked one off the kitchen counter and threw it at me.

I shook my head "no," but he didn't see me. He was already heading back downstairs to the sound of chickens screaming. (Chicken Run was the night's movie, as it is every time it's my six-year-old's turn to choose.)

Writing about Legos was actually a good idea. On any given day, I could find a handful of Legos hidden in every room of our house. But I don't have much else to say about them right now. When a Lego space ship clogs the toilet or a Lego pirate winds up in a lasagna, then I'll have something to write about.

In the meantime, I needed a new topic. And because I was feeling a bit scrappy, I came up with one of my favorite soapbox subjects: sports parents.

I know this is usually Greg Sellnow's area. But now it's my turn. My kids — at ages 6 and 9 — have tried their hands at a couple of sports. This winter, for instance, Christian is in hockey. (Bergen isn't ready for hockey, he says, because "it's too slippery.") Last summer, they were both in baseball — an activity I love if only for how cute they look in their baseball caps.

I'm all for sports. I think that teamwork is an important trait to encourage, and that exercise is a crucial habit to foster. I like the confidence my kids build when they learn a new skill and the bonding time they get when my husband helps coach. These are all good things.

But I'll tell you what. Nearly every time I go to a game, I'm thisclose to freaking out on some of the other parents.

There are, no doubt, many wonderful and supportive adults out there who understand that the goal of school sports is fun. Yet, in my short career as a sports mom, I have witnessed some pretty disturbing incidents.

I've seen the father of a seven-year-old girl get six inches from a coach's face and yell so loud that he cleared the locker room of kids and parents… all because his daughter couldn't play goalie at the next game. I've overheard a father berating his son for losing a run — after his son's team won the game by more than 10 points. I've sat behind a mom who trash talked the other kids on her child's soccer team.

I've heard three different coaches on three different occasions say, "The kids are great. It's the parents who make me crazy."

There's really no need to point out the moral of the story. You know what it is. And if you don't, well, you're probably one of "those" parents. To you, I offer this advice: Be nice. Play fair. Give your kids a break. And please don't sit next to me at the game.