Bad Parents

Well, it was bound to happen. Four years of going to Little One’s soccer games and three years of attending her basketball games, it was bound to happen.

There was almost a rumble at yesterday’s basketball game: bad parents.

My daughter’s fourth-grade basketball team traveled to the next county to play an unfamiliar town. We were coming off a rare win so the girls – and coach – were feeling confident. Those that got there early went out on the court and shared a net to practice with their nine-year-old opponents, most likely with laughter and good humor and general fourth-grade-girl goofiness.

Then, the parents arrived.

The girls play a frantic four-quarter game, each quarter six minutes long. Shooting probably has about a ten percent success ratio, so most of the game involves bad shots with no rebounds, lots of steals, and running back-and-forth and back-and-forth between opposing nets, almost like watching a tennis match. There are fouls when the girls get too spazzy and bump into each other; the refs’ whistles blow nonstop cuz the girls are still learning the rules of the game.

Anyway, good refs are firm and don’t let anything slide. When they blow the whistle, they take a moment to educate the girls on what is and what isn’t allowed. They’re teachers as much as referees.

Not so our pair for this game. But let’s return to our parents for a moment.

Exhibit A: the jerk shouter. This guy is standing on the bleachers about ten feet to my left. He shouted nonstop during the entire one-hour game. (You’ll see why the game laster one hour in a minute.) “Shoot!” “Stop the Ball!” “Rebound!” “Where’s the Call?!” “C’mon Ref!” “Who’s Watching 13?!” “Foul!” blah blah blah blah blah. I mean, BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Not only is he shouting at the top of his lungs, he’s getting visibly upset. (His team was losing to ours, first eight-nothing, and finally thirteen-to-nine.) He’s emotionally invested in a game played by nine-year-old fourth-graders. And the most obvious thing is, NO ONE IS LISTENING TO HIM. None of the girls on the court acknowledge him. None of the coaches acknowledge him. None of the refs acknowledge him. He’s just getting’ all the parents either very annoyed or very fired up, depending, I guess, if you live in the same town with him.

Then, at the start of the fourth quarter, the scoreboard goes blank. Now no one knows the time remaining or the score. Ten or fifteen minutes pass as they try to get it up and running. Finally, a father from the other team (not the shouter, who’s still shouting from the bleachers) stands in the middle of the court sidelines, cups his hands and barks out the remaining time every thirty seconds or so as the older girls keeping track of it inform him. Now, no one in the stands knows exactly what’s at stake when it’s at stake.

Two things immediately happen to the refs, two portly older gentlemen who have presumably refereed games before. Depends on your point of view or, er, which locality you maintain a residence. First, the game careens wildly out of control. It’s now a free-for-all, wild, rules-be-damned, Rollerball without the wheels, basketball according to the Lord of the Flies. Fouls are called, fouls aren’t called, there seems to be no rhyme or reason and parents on both sides of the court get louder and louder.

Then, there’s the issue of fouls being called possibly unfairly. Our coach immediately screams when one of our little ones is fouled and it’s not called. Later, I find out he calculated a 14-2 disparity in our girls being called for fouls versus their’s. This the ref won’t take and he ejects our coach and gives the other team a two technical foul throws in addition to the two foul throws the alleged foul incurred. With the score 13-9 in our favor with a few seconds left in the game, it could tie it all up.

One mother on the other team, indignant that our coach got upset for fouls being called against us, parades her daughter, teary-eyed and cradling her left arm, up past our side of the stands. “It’s going both ways!” she screams at anyone and everyone, though I am unsure of her exact meaning or implication.

Then, outright stupidity from one of our parents. As this nine-year-old on the other team is getting ready for her four free throws in front of all these insane, asinane, allegedly mature parents, one of ours yells out: “Miss!”

Classy.

This is heard by the girls working the score-clock-thingie, and they immediately pass word to the other town’s parents across from us.

Which is where I’ve been sitting the whole time, mind you.

Well, now our hosts are looking for blood – our blood. The poor girl does miss all her throws and we win the game. The refs high-tail it out of there. So do our town’s parents after gathering up their girls. The other town’s parents linger in the gym (to which I had to return to get Little One’s jacket ... and I have to admit I did feel a trickle of irrational nerves doing so). Our coach sent out a group email last evening apologizing for losing his temper at the game and promising to be better disciplined in the future.

My suggestion is that the basketball league needs to have all parents sign a Code of Conduct letter that the soccer league has us do.

It has officially come to that. (Though it’s probably been that way for decades now.)