Soccer Moms (pitbull, no lipstick)

I spend a lot of hours on the sidelines of soccer fields. My son plays on two teams, one travel and one school. Seven days a week – practice or games, twice on Saturday. Hey, it keeps him out of trouble. And gets me out of my office to get some fresh air.

Every once in awhile we play a team where awful parent behavior rears it's ugly head. In this case the head was a frizzy one on a little pitbull of a mom. She sat on the bottom of the bleachers and taunted the poor ref the entire game. She had a little help from the guy behind her, but she had the big screechy, nails-on-a-blackboard kind of voice that cuts right through you.

Hey Ref, what are you blind? (um lady, could you be more original)

Hey Ref, are you kidding me? You better watch your back when you leave the field! (yeh, right, lady you are 5 feet tall and 105 lbs dripping wet)

Hey Ref, you suck. Get a new job! (again, extremely articulate AND original)

This kind of behavior went on the whole game. And yellow card after yellow card went out to their team. Some of them looked to be a bit excessive. This ref was a little card happy. From where we sat anyway, but after the game my son told me how the other team was trash talking like crazy.

Gee, I wonder where they could have picked up that behavior? It never ceases to amaze me when I see parents act like this at kids sporting events. Mind you, I have seen much worse. It is just that this little rat-faced mom really got on my last nerve. You know the type, when a kid on our team gets injured and the ref doesn't see it instead of yelling 'Man Down' she yells, 'keep playing'.

Bad karma if you ask me.

At the end of the game a father from the other team came up to my husband and asked him if he thought the ref called a fair game. As only Gary can, in his charming way he said, "My friend, there was a woman on your team, and I am hoping she was not your wife, she was a bit out of line. Don't you think she might have pissed that ref off enough to make sure he called every foul on your team?"

Me, not so nice. "Listen, the parents on your team were just damn rude." The guy kind of backed away.

My son? Mortified and pushing us towards the car. "What?",I asked.

His response, "Ugh, who does that?"

"What?", I asked repetitively.

"Who actually answers the crazy parent from the other team?", he said.

"Um, the crazy parent from our team?", I answered.

"EXACTLY! Now let's go home."

Comments

[Miz Liz]

LOL!

[the planet of janet]

*snort* yep. that's who does it, all right!!!!!

[Molly]

There's at least one of those on every team, it seems. Where they really go over the line is when they start abusing the 15yo kids (yeah, mine) who are ref'ing the little kids' games. I'm tempted to print a big sign that reads "Look, they've been instructed not to call offsides and other minor strategic errors for the little kids, so shut up already. They're not calling it on your kid either." But, I bite my tongue and hide my poster paints.

[suburbancorrespondent]

Why doesn't anyone speak to these parents? I would have told her to zip it.

[Molly]

Why doesn't anyone speak to these parents? Because people have been killed at kids games confronting a psycho parent. We used to have "let the kids play" days where we handed out duct tape to any parent or grandparent who couldn't keep themselves from coaching on the sidelines. The kids loved it.

[amyz5]

molly, i LOVE the duct tape.

[Ilona]

I seem to recall reading of an obnoxious hockey dad who was barred from his son's games. The boy was 12ish, I think. Dad would drive his son over, and then had to sit in the parking lot, or go for a coffee somewhere. I think he'd gone so far as to assault a ref, but wouldn't it be nice if they'd be that firm even with verbal abuse? It bugs me that we just keep lowering and lowering our standards for people's behaviour.