More On The Oregon Basketball Parents

Two soccer tournaments this weekend and the parents were incredibly polite and classy. What's going on out there in Crazy Soccer Parent-Land? I know the season's young but we don't appear ready for summer tournaments at all. Where's the loud, top-of-the-lungs ignorance of basic football rules? The willingness to belittle someone else's 11-year-old kid? The sheer self-inflation of living vicariously through your offspring?

Fortunately, our friends down in Oregon are still in the news, so we can beat this horse a little longer. Hey, OR BBall parents, what's worse than having your son beat by a girl? Having it broadcast nationally that you're embarrassed that your son is being beat by a girl. Seriously. Sucks to be you.

Oregon BBall Parents Go Nutso

The CSPs have been distracted by the need to drive their kids back and forth around the Puget Sound area, team shopping during the tryout season. But never fear, next week there are two soccer tournaments that should produce, at least, a smattering of CSPology.

In the meantime, Oregon Bball Parents (CBBPs?) don't want the wunderkind 12-year-old girl to play with their boys. Read the excuse:

Neal Franzer, The Hoop's director of operations, said Thursday that
parents were "adamant" that their complaints have nothing to do with
Jaime's skills.

"They said the problem was the boys were playing differently against
her because she was a girl," he said. "They'd been taught to not push a
girl, so they weren't fouling her hard, and the focus had shifted from
playing basketball to noticing a girl was on the floor with them."

Uh, huh. They weren't fouling her hard. And once you take that element out of your 12-year-old's game, he's got nothing? Yeah, right.

So, let me see if I can break this down. In other words, your little boy is getting faked out of his $200 Nike high-tops by a girl, and that threatens your ability to enjoy living vicariously through the little guy.

You've probably tried everything else, right? You've yelled at him in the car on the way home, told him to "man up, she's just a girl," and even called him a sissy or a Bridget or something else demeaning. And yet, still, the girl is better. Banning her from the competition does seem like the logical next step.

What Are We Doing to our Kids?

The CSPs are still in hibernation, with tryouts just getting over and teams starting to practice, so I present instead a jarring article from the NYT Magazine about the high rate of injuries - particularly ALC injuries, but also concussions - in girls' sports.

Rich and Maria Pierson never had to push Janelle into soccer or to
reach for higher-level teams, and they certainly never berated her
after bad games. These types do exist, stereotypical “Little League
parents,” but it is far more difficult than some imagine to push a
reluctant child into sports, especially at a level that demands great
commitment. Children may acquiesce for a while, but all but the most
passive or abused will eventually rebel and shut down.

I found a different syndrome: parents of highly motivated, athletic
children who are supportive of their kids’ sports but bewildered by the
culture. The children, often as not, are the ones leading the way, and
the whole family gets pulled along in ways it never anticipated. “We
had no idea what we were getting into,” Rich Pierson said. “You just
feel your way as you go. She started playing with a local team, just
once or twice a week, then began with the travel team, and after that
it just builds on up.”

At what age should a young athlete begin traveling to out-of-town
tournaments? How many days a week should she be playing? When should
she give up her other sports? The professional coach is usually not
equipped to know what’s best, but he wields tremendous influence all
the same, sometimes by threat. He makes the schedules and sets the
rules, and a child who does not go along risks losing her place on the
team.

“Parents’ hearts are usually in the right place,” says Colleen Hacker, a sports-psychology
consultant who has worked with athletes from the preadolescent up
through the college, Olympic and professional ranks. “I don’t think
anybody’s saying, ‘Honey, how do we screw them up tomorrow?’ But the
attention, judgment and objectivity that parents bring to their work
lives and other spheres of importance, they don’t bring to their kids’
sports.”

The club structure is the driving force behind the trend toward
early specialization in one sport — and, by extension, a primary cause
of injuries. To play multiple sports is, in the best sense, childlike.
It’s fun. You move on from one good thing to the next. But to
specialize conveys a seriousness of purpose. It seems to be leading
somewhere — even if, in fact, the real destination is burnout or injury.

Train 'em To Be Sane

Here's a good article in Crosscut about how to not be a CSP. Training parents? There's a novel idea!

From the Land of Lots of Lakes, more training for parents.