I had an experience today that I found so disturbing and upsetting, I really am unsure of what to do next. So I’m blogging about it. Advice please.
So my 8-year-old son is in an Little League. I haven’t been in love with the league this entire season. It’s unorganized from the top down. There’s little communication by the league or coaches. It has taken us FIVE WEEKS to get written rules for the league – only to find that each coach has been just making up their own set of rules each game. My husband has been volunteering as a coach because the lack of parental involvement is staggering. He is coaching with one guy, who has been coaching for awhile, and his father, who has been coaching even longer. The three of them make a good team. Their only goal is to make sure the kids are learning week-to-week and having fun while doing it. Winning is fun and important, but not the only thing. If they are improving, they are all happy.
Unfortunately, not all teams in the league operate this way. My other issue with the league is that the majority of kids, parents, coaches speak spanish. I have no problem with it at all. But days like today I really wish I could at least understand what was happening around me because I was scared. I was scared watching a bunch of 8-year-olds playing baseball.
This is how it went down, at least from my viewpoint. The coach of the Phillies is a bully. From the start of the game he had some sort of chip on his shoulder and was really rude not only to our coaches, but to his own kids on his team. We have no umpires, and no real catchers, so strikes and balls are called by the both coaches. That it what started the trouble.
Then our coach (coach’s dad) had to go out to help pitch. Phillies coach had to throw the balls back to him once he ran out of balls. He decided to throw three (or four) balls all at the same time to our coach, who dropped them all. And then proceeded to make fun of him. Again – all in front of the parents and kids. Then he was talking trash to this coach’s wife, in spanish. And things were getting tense. But I wasn’t sure what was being said. The wife said in english, you leave my husband alone. And said it again in spanish ( I assume from my limited middle school spanish lessons).
So when it was time to switch, Phillies coach went to the mound and our guy went behind the plate, and while they were waiting for the batters, he walked over to us parents. He was talking to his wife about that guy being kind of a jerk to everyone and the Phillies guy started throwing balls at our coach – who had his back turned to him! All sorts of spanish was flying and again, I had no idea what was happening, but I needed to get out of there.
We hung out behind the dugout with our team because that seemed like a safe place. But things just went downhill from there. He started going back and forth again in spanish and then our coach said something to him like…”what are you crying about now?” and that’s when he broke.
Phillies coach starts yelling all these profanities. IN FRONT OF ALL THE KIDS AND PARENTS. That’s when I got out my camera and started recording. It was unreal. He clearly wanted a fight. At Little League. In front of the children. He did a really good job of swearing so everyone could understand him. My husband just called the game and made the kids pack it up and leave. It was terrible. The kids didn’t know what happened, the parents were so angry. I don’t understand how this guy is allowed to coach anywhere near children. He obviously has anger management issues.
After the field was cleared (all by other parents because there was no one official from the league anywhere) other parents started to threaten our coaches father. They said “We are going to kick that old man’s ass if we see him in the parking lot.” I mean….is this what it has come to?? Their coach started all of this. They are supposed to be examples, supposed to be role models. And parents are now threatening violence?? It was also interesting to see the amount of parents from the other team that now want to leave that team because apparently this isn’t the first time this has happened with their coach.
We stayed and filed reports with the league and I hope something is done to address this situation. This coach needs to be gone. These parents that threatened out coach need to be out. Threats are not ok.
The bigger question is now what? This is our THIRD BASEBALL LEAGUE because the other two also had the same problem with parents/coaches fighting. I didn’t want my kids around that. We complained, we filed reports, and nothing happened. So we left. My kid is pretty good at baseball. How is it this hard to find a league where rules are posted and followed.
Here’s the video. You don’t get a lot of the pre-stuff. However, you can clearly hear parents yelling after he starts dropping F-bombs everywhere.
So what do you think? Leave the league? Stay and fight the good fight? Should we have called the police? Is kicking this coach out of the league enough?
I would call the news media and do a fair bit of shaming, personally. Nothing people like more. Would make a great story, actually. But that really doesn’t help your situation.
This is horrifying! I would definitely take that video somewhere – the media, the head of the league, something.
First of all,, I am so sorry that the boys (and you) had to experience this kind of garbage. One should never be at a children’s sporting event or party (or anywhere for that matter) and be in fear of psychotic parents/coaches.
Here is what I would do :
1. get this video into the hands of the League director. This along with a formal complaint AND letting them know that you will give a copy to the police and the owner of the field where the game was played.
2. get a copy to the police who are zoned for where the field is. The owner of the field also should also be made aware of this.
3. Every parent who was threatening that coach needs to be given a restraining order. It is not right to punish the children for the actions of their parents, but they definitely need to be safely away from the coaches and parents of opposing teams.
4. I am not sure what kind of training the coaches have to take, but a good league will have formal training and contracts that a coach must complete to volunteer. They need to be backround checked and also follow league rules as part of that contract. Parents likewise, should have a “contract” to sign to ensure that if they DON’T follow the rules of conduct that they can be summarily dismissed and they will not be refunded.
Depending on how many games are left in the season and what the league does from this point what determine what I would do next. Especially if you play this team again.
I think you need to use the power of social media and also television media to shame these idiots to grow up! What type of role models are they?
I second Tracey’s remark. Each time I have coached, I had to sign that I would follow the league’s code of conduct. Sadly, parents should sign the same document these days.
I coached girls fast pitch for 4 years in Orange myself and the Little League organization takes this stuff very very seriously. The trick is to get it to their attention. The league your son is competing on has someone locally appointed as the president, who is most likely underfunded and can’t get quality coaches, but is ultimately responsible for the quality and training of the coaches. It needs to be brought to their attention for sure, but any sort of violence on the field is a law enforcement matter and definitely should be reported. If for any reason the president doesn’t take care of the issue or becomes defensive then the board of directors should be skipped and the Little League itself can be called. Every league has a board or directors BTW, for instance Orange can be found at http://www.orangelittleleague.org/contacts.htm .
On a side note, it wasn’t unusual on busy days for our board to require law enforcement at some of the larger venues.