I was never sports/ athletically minded. My parents never pushed me to be involved in little league. I remember going to se my neighbor play and so many (not all) of the parents acting like idiots. I asked my father about it when I got home. He told me little league was invented for the parents so they could feel better about their own lack of athletic ability. I nev er forgot that and it was over 50 years ago.
I had a good friend (who unfortunately died earlier this year) who invested a lot of time and emotion watching his only boy play sports.
His kid was not a bad player in basketball and baseball, but he was no superstar.
When his kid was a senior in high school he had a chance to start on the school basketball team. But since he sat on the bench early in the season my friend encouraged him to quit.
One of the starters got injured, and my friend's kid would have been a starter. But he quit with help from my friend.
My friend thought his kid was a superstar who was being wronged by the coach. I didn't have the guts to tell my friend that his kid wasn't nearly as good as he thought he was.
I guess that kind of dad thinking is behind many parents going berserk watching their kids play. They think their kid is a lot better than he actually is. As someone who helped coach grade school basketball for four years, I know that to be a fact.
And I remember reading the words of a person who ran a top flight basketball camp for some of the nation's best high school basketball players. The guy had to laugh at the parents of players who were big fish in small ponds but outclassed when playing against the nation's best players. They simply couldn't grasp that their kid wasn't nearly as good as they thought he was. They'd ask the guy who ran the camps why their kid simply couldn't do as well as he did back home. The guy had to tell them the truth about their kid, and many simply couldn't accept it.
I don't know what the solution is to parents who go crazy watching their kids play ball. I wouldn't want to prevent parents from watching their children play. Many children want their parents to watch them play.
I didn't give a rip when I played because nobody else had their parents watching them.
But examples like the Florida guy are too common. Something should be done.
