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Parents are in the news several times a year for becoming too involved with their child when it comes to their child’s sporting events. If your child is involved in sports you have probably watched an overzealous parent yelling at someone. My parents weren’t one of those types of parents. If they ever yelled during one of my wrestling matches it was to root me on. I however, during the years I was active in wrestling and football, was able to see other parents that didn’t have much restraint in regards to their behavior during sporting events.
I still remember specific parents to this day screaming from the nose bleed section at wrestling tournaments. It wasn’t a brief scream and then silent for the remainder of the day. The parent would be condemning, screaming, and cursing not just the referee but the other wrestlers and coaches. And let me tell you those tournaments were loud, but those referees could still hear those parents. The parents eventually were kicked out of the event.
After I graduated I started coaching wrestling at my brother’s high school. At wrestling matches I coached my brother as he wrestled also saying specific things in defense of my brother. I would mention how I thought a call was bad or say remarks that I knew would get under the referee’s skin. I was protective over my brother and I didn’t want an injustice to come upon him. In one instance during a wrestling match I thought the wrestler was suffocating my brother and the referee was not paying attention to my brother motioning that he couldn’t breathe. I stood up, circled around the mat and grabbed the referee’s leg and yelled at him for not paying attention. If it wasn’t for the head coach covering for me I would have been kicked out of the gym. I always wanted to protect my brother and I found myself doing things like that (making a bit of a scene)to protect him.
About 16 years have passed since those days of my brother wrestling and me making a jerk out of myself. My kids are now participating in sports and I am hoping I have grown out that overprotective parent response. Restraint as a parent can be tough when you don’t want anything bad to happen or to have some injustice happen to your child while they are playing. We watch to make sure every foul against our child or their team is seen by the referee and make sure we let them know when they missed it.
I do realize that the example I give as a parent will reflect how they act as players on the field and in life. I think the fact that my parents didn’t overreact to any losses or bad calls helped me to be a good sport when things didn’t go my way. I also don’t want to embarrass my children by over reacting to something just because I am their dad.
My kids will begin playing their soccer games in a couple of weeks. I expect there will be some teaching moments in regards to sportsmanship and growing moments for myself going forward.
What have you learned with your children and the sporting events? I would love to hear about any stories that have happened as a parent and what you learned from it.
Thanks for reading,
Andrew
