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[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

My son and daughter both played travel. My girl for the local dad coached cheap team. My son for the team having "coaches with accents" ( "I played pro in England so pay me") Son's teams was forever screwed by this type problem. no one kicked off if the 'rents could float a check, and no one benched ever even if the word pass was not even in their vocabulary. It is bullshit. As near as I can tell one kid from all of their teammates got a scholarship.

The thing that really opened my eyes was when my kids started reffing. They were 13. They could ref rec league U-13, or any U-8 (pre-travel). No travel games at first. The U-8 having a mix of the kids that will be travel and those that will be rec was a problem. Or more accurately the U-8 parents of the kids that will be travel were. I would drive them to ref, and so I'd watch. Those U-8 parents would be screaming like mad people, and I just thought how can you watch these little kids playing and scream like that? But i also realized I had too, and was currently doing the same for my kids in their older leagues.* We shouldn't change any of it so the US can make the World Cup, but we should maybe ban parents from watching so that kids can just have fun.

*Don't even ask me what I had to become to deal with rival coaches in travel basketball, or my greatest shame, yelling at Canadian b-ball refs at a Gus Macker in London Ontario, when I went into what was required to get fair treatment v. the yelling US coaches. Canadians didn't yell. i'm surprised they didn't try to hospitalize me.

My kids play field hockey and...oh god what have I become? FIELD HOCKEY? Pretty soon someone is going to try to get me to join a country club.