Parents need to be positive or silent

I'm posting this article I came across because it stresses the need for parents to be positive when watching kids play. Please feel free to comment.


Parents need to be positive or silent
Effie Dawson, The Examiner
2007-10-10 07:00:00.0

BALTIMORE -
Parents of athletes know how to juggle 40-hour work weeks, laundry, yard work and dentist appointments while still chauffeuring children to games, practices, camps and appointments with personal trainers.

They know shortcuts to obscure fields, stores that dye lacrosse heads and the best deals on tournament hotels in Delaware, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

Parents amass an amazing amount of knowledge guiding their children through the maze of youth sports. And that is why it’s equally amazing how little parents understand about the rules of their children’s games.

There is a fair share of unsportsmanlike talk to be heard on youth sidelines and bleachers. But the greater issue is that fans — most of them parents — misinterpret rules or completely misunderstand them. And that never stops them from criticizing calls at a high decibel level.

A few years back, Anne Arundel County sponsored a “quiet” weekend where fans were not allowed to speak during youth basketball games. It was a little silly not to cheer for the teams, but the point was made: Parents on the sidelines need to be positive or silent.

A combination of the two is the best idea.

The rule-challenging problem begins early. In leagues for the youngest players, rules are introduced slowly and coaches serve as referees whose job is to correct, not penalize, mistakes. Once more competitive play begins, parents are pretty confident they understand the rules. And more often than not, they haven’t a clue.

I try to tell parents that being the loudest doesn’t mean they are right,” said Don Anthony, president of Matrix Sports Management, a firm that trains and provides referees for up to 5,000 area youth sports games each year.

“The biggest misconception that [soccer] fans have is the offside rule,” said Severn boys soccer coach Larry Snyder, a former soccer and basketball referee.

Most people don’t even call it right — it’s offside, not offsides. The rule regulates when players are allowed behind an opponent’s last defender. But it also takes into account when a ball is kicked, and the player’s involvement in the play. Actually, I can’t explain all these specifics, even after searching a dozen Web sites for a simple explanation.

One site explained that there are hundreds of rules and many ways that each rule can be interpreted accurately. Another site suggested that only about 100 people really understand this rule.

Anthony said handballs are another tough rule to understand, because not every touch of the ball is a violation. And every sport has rules that are more complex than fans realize. He suggested parents spend $6.25 on rule books for their children’s sports, then read them.

My advice on the offside and handball rules, along with traveling in basketball, balks in baseball and shooting space in lacrosse, is to let the referee call it.

Parents’ comments on calls don’t help their child’s team or their child’s development as a player. And it certainly doesn’t impress other parents. It is embarrassing to sit on the sidelines with parents screeching for referees to throw flags, pull out cards or reverse the course of play.

Call-making fans see it as a way to support their team or influence a ref. It does neither.

“When I was refereeing, I was pretty good at blocking people out,” Snyder said.

Now, as a coach, he said, parents of his players are pretty good at leaving the referees alone.

So are the parents of more experienced athletes. They understand that not every shoulder bump is a foul, and there are legal ways to knock a player to the ground, Snyder said. They understand that some “no calls” are to allow continuation of play so they don’t remove a team’s advantage.

In some sports, the better teams play a more physical game, and the parents learn not to consistently scream: “That’s a foul!”

And it’s also true that referees make mistakes. And in youth and high school sports, there is no instant replay or challenges for those situations. In the end, those mistakes rarely, very rarely, make a difference.

Different referees, Snyder said, “may be prone to call a little more or a little less. You are never going to get the perfect referee, but you look for them to be consistent, not to affect the outcome of the game.”

And parents aren’t going to affect the outcome either, no matter how many calls they make or criticize. In fact, the more vocal the parents, the more they reveal their lack of sports knowledge. And worse, the louder the parents, the more likely they are to embarrass their children.

Effie Dawson writes regularly about high school and youth sports.