ABUSIVE SPORTS PARENTS: Plane Fly-Over Banner a New Low in Parental Behavior - Ask Coach Wolff

Look!! Up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane!! No, it's just Johnny and Billy's parents doing stupid $pit again!!

Nothing should amaze us anymore, and yet it does. It seems like sports parents are having a competition to out-do each other in terms of stupid stunts or abhorrent behavior.

from askcoachwolff.com
http://www.askcoachwolff.com/2018/05/27/abusive-sports-parents-plane-fly-over-banner-a-new-low-in-parental-behavior/

ABUSIVE SPORTS PARENTS: Plane Fly-Over Banner a New Low in Parental Behavior

by Rick Wolff

May 27, 2018
Chances are that you heard about this absolutely bizarre incident that took place last week at a HS baseball playoff game. It was first reported on all sorts of twitter feeds, and a number of you made sure I was aware of it.

In short, at Briarcliff HS in Westchester County (NY), right before the start of a game between Briarcliff and Irvington HS, a small plane flew overhead for several minutes with a banner trailing behind it that read: "Fire Schrader and Kowalcyck"….

As you might have surmised, John Schrader is the head coach, and Walter Kowalcyck is the assistant coach at Briarcliff.

Now, this act of renting a plane to publicly and blatantly urge that HS coaches be fired is, if nothing else, deeply embarrassing to the people who live in that community. That is, instead of the focus being on how the team is having a great season, one parent has selfishly pushed all of that off to the side in order to make his or her point known.

And that, of course, is just not right. Especially if you don't have the COURAGE to step forward and identify yourself – and to explain WHY you felt compelled to do this.
The hard reality is that this is just another progressive step in the increasingly acrimonious friction between sports parents and coaches. And even worse, there's no sense that this kind of alienation is going to decrease.

In short, as we know,  from the parent's perspective, THESE DAYS…it's all about MY KID….not the team…MY KID comes first.

WHO IS THE REAL VICTIM?

That's the sad irony here. Certainly in the small town of Briarcliff, word will soon get out as to who did this. And while that parent will be vilified for sure, the real victim here is the son who's presumably on the team. Of course, it's possible that he's a senior and graduating soon, or perhaps he was cut from the team, or maybe transferred to a different school. We won't really know the underlying reason until the parent steps up.

But regardless, in the end, it's the boy who clearly had some sort of relationship to the team who will be ostracized. Of course, he may be totally innocent in what his parent did, but in the end, that probably won't make any difference.

According to various media reports, the LI-based aviation company which owns the plane, it was a woman – presumably a sports parent – who paid $1250 to have the banner flown over the HS field for 15 minutes.

What is even more amazing is that the aviation company said that they get requests like this routinely. (But if that is true, how come we haven't heard about other similar incidents?)

In any event, at the time of the fly-over, Briarcliff was actually having a terrific season at 19-3 and easily defeated Irvington HS on that day.

That being said, we all know that even when a team is having a highly successful year, there are still usually parents who are disgruntled…that is, they feel that their kid is not getting enough playing time, or is not playing the right position, or they feel the staff is only playing favorites, or whatever reason – and they point to the coaches as the reason why.

Now, the aftermath is that people in Briarcliff are saying that this embarrassing experience has actually brought the team and coaching staff closer together. I sure hope so.

In fact, in the next playoff game for Briarcliff, another plane flew overhead with another  banner – but this one was encouraging the team and the Briarcliff coaches. That banner was signed by the school superintendent who clearly supported the coaching staff.

This entire incident begs the question: what can HS coaches do to defend themselves against unruly parents?

COACHES WHO FILE LAWSUITS

Now, I ask that because  I read where a HS coach in upstate NY fought back against a bunch of parents who basically got him fired by writing nasty letters to the school board. And that coach went to court to fight back; he sued those parents for defamation, and won.

In short, a long-time coach named Mark Storm in a small public school district outside Rochester was let go after 30 years coaching basketball, baseball, and other sports. As mentioned, some parents had sent a letter to the local school board saying that the coach was a bully… that he broke promises to his players… and that he was verbally abusive and had a drinking problem.

Confronted with this parental list of complaints, the local school board decided to let the veteran coach go.

But for Coach Storm, this was the last straw. He was angry at all of these complaints, and especially the false accusation that he had an alcohol problem.

So Storm fought back. He filed a defamation lawsuit against those parents. And last month, he agreed to a $50,000 settlement –he had asked for $150,000. But certainly his point was made. The parents who wrote the nasty letter now have to pay him.

This is not the first time a coach used the legal system. Back In 2005, a HS baseball coach in California won $700,000 in a slander case when a parent accused the coach of ruining his kid's chances of becoming a college or pro player. (That kid, by the way, eventually tried out as a walk-on at the Univ. of San Diego and was cut.)

Now….I'm not necessarily advocating that coaches start to hire lawyers…..but I do think we're at a point where we can certainly understand why HS coaches feel that they have a right to defend themselves.

Sure, getting a lawyer takes time, effort and money to file a lawsuit, but I do sense this may be where we are headed. I sure hope not.

Sent from my iPhone

Are helicopter parents ruining youth sports?

To the question. Put me down for a YES!! YES!! YES!!

Lets look at why, shall we?

Let's start with a definition of helicopter parent.

hel·i·cop·ter par·ent

noun
informal

plural noun: helicopter parents

1. a parent who takes an overprotective or excessive interest in the life of their child or children.

   "some college officials see all this as the behavior of an overindulged generation, raised by helicopter parents and lacking in resilience"

Now let's open the floor for debate.

from ncsasports.org via Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/NCSAsports/posts/10152924957797967

http://www.ncsasports.org/blog/2015/06/29/helicopter-sports-parents-ruining-game/

Comment from another reader:

This article is ridiculous.  Who do you think started & taught their players from the beginning!  Not a coach that uses a team as recreation or in some cases a "tax write off". The upper level competitors practices daily with a parent or specialized coach.. The so called scout or representative will ask you for 3-4 thousand  to help get your child recruited to colleges of no interest academically, location or a Juco.  Not necessary, just good common sense. I guess someone should have told Jenny Finch's dad that, he was her coach from day 1 & followed her through retirement..

 Comment from TheSlav:

Many coaches are in over their head or out of heir element and emotionally attached because it is after all their kids we're talking about. For every Jennie Finch, who I don't doubt did a great job there is a ( or maybe more like 10 ) Colby Rasmus who reportedly continues to circle even though the "kid"  is in the major leagues. That's why the article is pretty spot on. As a parent, at some point you have to learn to let go. It's healthy for both parent and child that way.

MLB.com has a riff from Rick Neuheisel talking about walking Puff Daddy or some such and his son and 20 minutes in rap star asks him "So Rick, what is it you do here? He was only the football coach at the time.

Sent from my iPhone

It appears that the effects of the phenomena called "helicopter parents" are being felt far beyond the arena of youth sports, BTW.

from pjmedia.com

http://pjmedia.com/parenting/2015/07/07/surprise-helicopter-parents-breed-anxious-kids/

Surprise! Helicopter Parents Breed Anxious Kids

By Bethany Mandel

Who would’ve thunk it? When you manage every part of a child’s life, when you never leave them alone to teach them coping skills, they become anxious adults when finally allowed a little bit of room on the leash. Slate has an interesting discussion of a new book on helicopter parenting and college-aged kids.

In 2010, psychology professor Neil Montgomery of Keene State College in New Hampshire surveyed 300 college freshmen nationwide and found that students with helicopter parents were less open to new ideas and actions and more vulnerable, anxious, and self-conscious. “[S]tudents who were given responsibility and not constantly monitored by their parents—so-called ‘free rangers’—the effects were reversed,” Montgomery’s study found. A 2011 study by Terri LeMoyne and Tom Buchanan at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga looking at more than 300 students found that students with “hovering” or “helicopter” parents are more likely to be medicated for anxiety and/or depression.

Some observations as to how we arrived at this point and in this authors opinion it has truly been a long time in the making. I agree with the first development, fear of child abductions led to a tamping down of the concept of "free play" or unsupervised play by children. That horse may have left the barn, never to return. Now if parents let kids play freely like we were allowed to the risk not only social condemnation but the risk that their kids will be abducted all right, but by another entity, the state and Child Protections Services. 

Once again, we have change. But it sure doesn't seem like change for the better. 

from Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-the-helicopter-parent-2015-7

Many of us remember a time when, in comparison, parents were rather uninvolved in childhood.

When a parent (usually a mom) would throw the door open on weekday afternoons and tell us, "Go out and play and be home for dinner." Our parents had no idea where we were or exactly what we were doing. There were no cell phones for keeping in touch or GPS devices for tracking.

Off we went into the wilderness of our block, our neighborhood, our town, our vacant lots, our parks, our woods, our malls. Or sometimes, we just snuck a book and sat on the back steps.

Childhood doesn't look that way today and many young parents don’t relate to childhood ever having been that way.

When, why, and how did parenting and childhood change? Even a cursory hunt yields a bounty of shifts. A number of important ones take place in the mid-1980s.

In 1983, one shift arose from the increased awareness of child abductions. The tragic 1981 abduction and murder of a young child named Adam Walsh became the made-for-television movie Adam, which was seen by a near record-setting 38 million people.

....

And a fourth shift was the creation of the playdate, circa 1984. The play-date emerged as a practical scheduling tool at a time when mothers were entering the workforce in record numbers. The combination of more parents working and the increased reliance on day care meant fewer kids were going home after school, and it was harder to find either a location or a time for play.

Once parents started scheduling play, they then began observing play, which led to involving themselves in play. Once a critical mass of parents began being involved in kids' play, leaving kids home alone became taboo, as did allowing kids to play unsupervised.

Day care for younger kids turned into organized after-school activities for older kids. Meanwhile, concerns at the turn of that decade over injury and lawsuits prompted a complete overhaul of public playgrounds nationwide. The very nature of play — which is a foundational element in the life of a developing child — began to change.

 Excerpted from "How To Raise An Adult" by Julie Lythcott-Haims, published by Henry Holt and Company, LLC. Copyright © 2015 by Julie Lythcott- Haims. All rights reserved.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-the-helicopter-parent-2015-7#ixzz3fURgB055

Agree also on the point of fear of under-achievement due to our failing educational system and falling standing of our kids versus their international peers as far as education goes. 

So we have two elements of FEAR underlying our decision making and cultural shifts. What could possibly go wrong when that element is in there? It can't possibly lead to irrational decisions could it?

The focus on self-esteem is just loony IMO, but I agree it is there and a part of the problem. The whole "everybody gets a trophy" manifestation in youth sports kind of personifies the absurdity of that response. 

And fourth, the arrival of "play-dates" is just a compensation which recognizes the problem, but instead of turning back the hands of time, so to speak, which we cannot do since we have a parental partner in big government, we have to compensate in such a way that Big Brother nods his head in approval. 

What a mixed up world we live in, huh? The first step is to recognize that this is a problem and I think the people who most fit the definition don't recognize that it may be them we are talking about. But oh well, what are you going to do?

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