Idiots in youth sports need to be challenged

Throughout our society there’s been an erosion of civility. This type of behavior doesn’t escape kids sports.”

So said Fred Engh, president of the National Alliance for Youth Sports. His comments came in the wake of the notorious Thomas Junta manslaughter trial in Massachusetts where one parent killed another over a hockey dispute involving their kids.

Engh is right. I refer to it as “the attempted takeover by the idiots.”

They are the ones on the cell phone, raging while driving, using them illegally on airplanes and swearing into them in the middle of restaurants. They are the idiots seated at sporting events, drunk out of their minds and throwing batteries on the field. They are the idiots who slip the dollars under the table to high school and college athletes as they try to live their miserable lives vicariously through some muscle-bound kid.

Youth sports violence IS part of it.

Youth studies say 30 million kids were involved in sports last year. Fifteen percent of the games they played involved verbal or physical abuse by parents, a three-fold increase in five years. A national sports officials group says there were 150 attacks on game officials last year, up five times from five years ago.

The reasons are no secret. Sports psychologist Stephen Bucky says parents are “preoccupied with winning.” Their long-term goals for their kids are about money from sports contracts the kid is never going to get, but that doesn’t stop what Bucky calls the “intensification of feelings,” that lead to idiotic and dangerous acts.

Youth sports leagues are trying teach-ins, parental pledges of sportsmanship, no cheering rules, kids zones where parents can’t go while games are under way, parent-free games and a host of other ideas to reach the problem.

Courts are involved. A parent who poisoned the game drinks of football players ages 8, 12, and 14 on his kid’s team when trying to get back at a player, received six months house arrest and a year of the nebulous and usually non-existent “community service.”

A parent who threatened to kill his son’s coach received 45 days in jail, three years probation and six months of anger management training. That’s helpful, but not enough.

What’s changed is this. Not long ago there were societal pressures that throttled the idiots. We are now all too afraid to act.

We sit and watch, wringing our hands and rolling our eyes, but we sit. We have become afraid because of the very violence we detest, but the silence has enabled even more violence. We may all believe nobody cares.

I don’t think that is the case. The next time the idiot parent begins the ranting and raving, ask another parent if they think it has gone too far. The two or three of you approach the person and ask, civilly of course, for the parent to reconsider his or her actions. There can be peer pressure at any age.

Support efforts ensure safety for the kids, and most important, be responsible as a parent in your own actions.

The last people who should have to suffer from the actions of unruly or dangerous parents are the kids. Throwing kids out of leagues has to be a last step. Such action isn’t going to reach the parents since they have made it clear from their own conduct that they don’t care.

On January 25, Junta is scheduled to be sentenced on the involuntary manslaughter conviction that took the life of another parent over a youth hockey argument. One of the elements of court punishment is deterrence. The Massachusetts court needs to send a clear message that his action, so incredibly senseless, will not be tolerated.

It is sad and unfortunate, but violence surrounding youth sports is a serious matter that requires societal pressure and court penalties. The idiots cannot be allowed to take over.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and NBC sportscaster.