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Violence is rare but not unheard of. Military police were called in to stop a parents' brawl at a "tinymite" football game in Repton, Ala., last October. A T-ball coach in Wagoner, Okla., was sentenced to 12 days in jail for attacking a 15-year-old umpire. California recently passed a law making it a felony to assault a sports official in an amateur contest.
More common is the low-voltage ugliness of parents who just don't know when to let up, or shut up. Hockey parents in suburban Washington are used to such sights as the dad who ran up to his son after an unexpected loss recently to rage at him, "I'm very, very disappointed." The boy sighed, staring at his scuffed toes. "Yeah, Mom's gonna chew me out too."
Jay George, a Washington biochemist whose son Jason, 12, plays on Washington's Little Caps team, had to summon a referee to remove some parents from the opposing team who were overheard telling their kids, "If you're going to get a penalty, really hurt someone." Then there was the time a Squirt-level tournament match ended in a tie and one of the opposing moms celebrated by clawing two of George's son's teammates as they filed off the ice.
And if parents don't spoil the fun, sometimes the coaches will. Bob Bradley, 41, of Chicago tried to suggest quietly to his daughter's soccer instructor that his screaming at the players during a game was inhibiting their play. "Well, you're the parent and I'm the coach," came the reply, "and I'm the one who knows how to play this game." Bradley walked away without mentioning that he had just coached the Chicago Fire to the championship of Major League Soccer.
Critics cite such unpleasantness to account for the 73% of kids who quit their childhood sports by age 13, according to studies. "They drop out because it ceases to be fun, and the pressures put on them by coaches and parents don't make it worthwhile," says Fred Engh of West Palm Beach, Fla. He's a professional coach, father of seven and author of the book Why Johnny Hates Sports.
Too often, says Engh, "we take Johnny and Mary and push them into sports without knowing whether they're physically or mentally ready. The travel teams, the all-stars, the championships--they're what the parents want. There's nothing wrong with competition. It makes people successful. But children under the age of 10 don't necessarily want competition. What they want is to have fun, to go out and swing on a swing and go down a sliding board."
Swings? Slides? How hopelessly retro. Nowadays, if a kid waits till she's 10 to decide she wants to compete at an advanced level, the travel team will have already left the station. Her peers will be making deft one-touch passes while she's still learning to dribble. That leaves as her only option the easygoing recreation league, where the coaching is desultory and players often go AWOL. While many parents of kids on "rec" teams equate "keeping it fun" with holding down the level of instruction and competition, the kids often see things differently. Young, of the professional coaches' association, observes, "It's not fun for them when they don't get better."