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The Rise of the Snowplow Sports Parents


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https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/06/19/snowplow-parents-sports

 

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In football as in other sports, they’re drawing up business plans, starting marketing agencies, turning up at practice and even monitoring phone use. But by clearing out every obstacle on their kids’ road to stardom, hyperinvolved moms and dads threaten to deprive young athletes of critical life experiences. And they’re driving coaches and agents nuts.

 

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Its a tricky thing, and a slippery slope. On days im not playing im umpiring and the difference in kids and parents in the last 5 years is shocking. For example, if a pitcher keeps hitting a corner - im going to give it to him. Im impressed when a kid see it for a called strike, shakes his head, learns from it and when he gets the same pitch he goes w/it and drives it to oppo field. Its scary how many kids will B word about the 1st one and then watch the same thing 2x and complain about the entire AB rather than adjusting. 

On a seperate note, the parents. Younger and younger they get more and more involved in a bad way. The worst are the ones (that the coach has obviously cultivated the atmosphere) when the coach is timid but the parents complain about EVERY pitch, call, play. Im behind the plate but johnnys dad had a better view of if it was outside 175 ft down the right field line.... and then we wonder where the kids get it from. Its just disgusting,  and it makes you appreciate it kids who do it the right way. The snotty kid used to be the outlier, now its reverse. Obviously this isnt what the article was about as the Marinavich way has changed a lot through the years and this is a morphing of that - but even parents who dont think they affect they way their kid plays the game hc they arent hands on to that degree should look at it a little differently IMO

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21 minutes ago, MJS said:

Let's be honest. This is nothing new.

There has always been that element MJS, but having kids over a long period -- age range 25 to 6, I believe it gets worse with every generation.  I agree with gobills1212, the minority of over officious (to quote Marv) parents 15 years ago has now become the majority. 

 

Case in point, the parental group for my daughter's HS state champion lacrosse teams her junior and senior years (3 years ago), where 8 young ladies who were sophomores, juniors and seniors her senior year got D1 Scholarships, was better behaved than my 6 year old son's bumble bee soccer team parents. 

 

Yesterday, my little guy at halftime looked at the parent of one of his teammates and said, "Your kid is good, just let him play, don't tell him what to do and don't tell the coach what to do with him." No matter where my guy goes in sports, he has learned to spot and call out jerks.  He and I talked about this for a while after the game.  He asked me if I was mad at him for being disrespectful to an adult...I said that the adult was acting like a kid -- so it was okay.

Edited by JoeF
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24 minutes ago, gobills1212 said:

Its a tricky thing, and a slippery slope. On days im not playing im umpiring and the difference in kids and parents in the last 5 years is shocking. For example, if a pitcher keeps hitting a corner - im going to give it to him. Im impressed when a kid see it for a called strike, shakes his head, learns from it and when he gets the same pitch he goes w/it and drives it to oppo field. Its scary how many kids will B word about the 1st one and then watch the same thing 2x and complain about the entire AB rather than adjusting. 

On a seperate note, the parents. Younger and younger they get more and more involved in a bad way. The worst are the ones (that the coach has obviously cultivated the atmosphere) when the coach is timid but the parents complain about EVERY pitch, call, play. Im behind the plate but johnnys dad had a better view of if it was outside 175 ft down the right field line.... and then we wonder where the kids get it from. Its just disgusting,  and it makes you appreciate it kids who do it the right way. The snotty kid used to be the outlier, now its reverse. Obviously this isnt what the article was about as the Marinavich way has changed a lot through the years and this is a morphing of that - but even parents who dont think they affect they way their kid plays the game hc they arent hands on to that degree should look at it a little differently IMO

You’re an ump, you’re inherently blind. Johnny’s dad was right, it was a bad call.

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37 minutes ago, gobills1212 said:

Its a tricky thing, and a slippery slope. On days im not playing im umpiring and the difference in kids and parents in the last 5 years is shocking. For example, if a pitcher keeps hitting a corner - im going to give it to him. Im impressed when a kid see it for a called strike, shakes his head, learns from it and when he gets the same pitch he goes w/it and drives it to oppo field. Its scary how many kids will B word about the 1st one and then watch the same thing 2x and complain about the entire AB rather than adjusting. 

On a seperate note, the parents. Younger and younger they get more and more involved in a bad way. The worst are the ones (that the coach has obviously cultivated the atmosphere) when the coach is timid but the parents complain about EVERY pitch, call, play. Im behind the plate but johnnys dad had a better view of if it was outside 175 ft down the right field line.... and then we wonder where the kids get it from. Its just disgusting,  and it makes you appreciate it kids who do it the right way. The snotty kid used to be the outlier, now its reverse. Obviously this isnt what the article was about as the Marinavich way has changed a lot through the years and this is a morphing of that - but even parents who dont think they affect they way their kid plays the game hc they arent hands on to that degree should look at it a little differently IMO

Here here!  Well stated.  

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Monitoring phone use is a problem?  Seems to me a kid just had his spot at Harvard taken away because of something stupid he said online years prior.  I don't allow my son to have a phone at all.  That's a problem?

 

People bemoan parents acting this way then the institutions continue to act in ways that support the behavior. For example, the agent who got chastised for calling the kid too many times.  At what point is it still parenting when an adult is calling their minor child attempting to conduct business. How many times is too many times?  Obviously the kid doesn't HAVE an agent yet so until they do is the parent NOT the one who is supposed to act in their child's best interest?  They are supposed to step out of the way and let the agents do whatever they want and say whatever they want to their kid to convince them to sign on? I'm sure the agent was being entirely scrupulous because you know, agents.  It's like the coaches who call on players for recruiting purposes, sure coach have at it I'll just step out of the way for you to tell my kid whatever line of crap you want.  The example they gave with the Haskins' family.  They need to coach people on how to behave because WE the public will scrutinize every move they make in public, so the parents are just supposed to let that happen?

 

Parents in sports ARE a problem but these examples aren't the reason. 

Edited by That's No Moon
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45 minutes ago, RobbRiddick said:

This has been the case for decades. Remember Marinovich's crazy father, or the Williams sisters dad, to name a couple. It's just people who feel like failures trying to live again through their kids. 

 

not just sports either.. The Jackson's.... The Beach Boys, and I'm sure most of the teen idol category is littered with over zealous parenting. Yes there are dangers and kids this young need to be steered some... But you are correct that these Parents are living vicariously thru their children.

 

Heck you can even add in the most disgusting one of them all IMO. Child Beauty Pageants. 

Edited by ddaryl
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1 hour ago, gobills1212 said:

Its a tricky thing, and a slippery slope. On days im not playing im umpiring and the difference in kids and parents in the last 5 years is shocking. For example, if a pitcher keeps hitting a corner - im going to give it to him. Im impressed when a kid see it for a called strike, shakes his head, learns from it and when he gets the same pitch he goes w/it and drives it to oppo field. Its scary how many kids will B word about the 1st one and then watch the same thing 2x and complain about the entire AB rather than adjusting. 

On a seperate note, the parents. Younger and younger they get more and more involved in a bad way. The worst are the ones (that the coach has obviously cultivated the atmosphere) when the coach is timid but the parents complain about EVERY pitch, call, play. Im behind the plate but johnnys dad had a better view of if it was outside 175 ft down the right field line.... and then we wonder where the kids get it from. Its just disgusting,  and it makes you appreciate it kids who do it the right way. The snotty kid used to be the outlier, now its reverse. Obviously this isnt what the article was about as the Marinavich way has changed a lot through the years and this is a morphing of that - but even parents who dont think they affect they way their kid plays the game hc they arent hands on to that degree should look at it a little differently IMO

 

I think for many kids in particular the average ones, once they hit around 12 or 13, the kids will tell the parents to shut up, you're embarrassing me.  But the real superstars are playing on these travel teams and there all the parents are doing it, so it's no longer embarrassing, it just becomes the norm.  Organized sports is likely worse as there the parents are paying for the kids to play and at the high levels with paid coaches, the parents indirectly are paying the coaches salary.  I'd think school sports would be a little easier as at least the school does have some control over access, at least at practices and things.

 

32 minutes ago, RobbRiddick said:

This has been the case for decades. Remember Marinovich's crazy father, or the Williams sisters dad, to name a couple. It's just people who feel like failures trying to live again through their kids. 

 

And then parents see these as examples and figure if it's OK for them to do it, it's OK for me too.

 

I use to ref HS and club volleyball.  That wasn't too bad as often the parents didn't understand the rules enough to even know what's going on to complain.  And most often when they did scream and yell it was on something that if they actually knew the rules would have realized it was legal.  I also thought volleyball  was easier to control as other than maybe golf, it's the closest thing to a non contact sport.  I think thats where the trouble starts, soccer and basketball are probably the worsted as in theory they are non-contact sports, But in reality far from it and things can more easily escalate out of control from there.

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I read this article a few days ago, nothing in it surprised me. What's sad is that even on lower levels the parents are out of their minds. I have taken our daughter to a bunch of college softball camps that go all day. Most of the player there are going to play D2 or D3, there are a handful of D1 prospects. These camps go 6-7 hours and I'd say 90+% of the parents stay there all day and watch. I guess I am the bad parent that dump our kid off at 8:45 and comes back at 3:45 when she's almost done. 

 

I know a fair amount of college coaches and the thing they all say is they are taking note of the snowplow parents, or more importantly, taking note of the kids that function independently. They like that, also think the independent kid will adjust to college life much better. 

 

Even in the recruiting game which is not easy to navigate we have told our daughter that we will support her but she has to do the work, she has to contact the coaches, get on their radar, do the follow up, etc. We will take her for visits and camps and support her but she has to do the work. 

 

And the thing is it is working out well, she has a bunch of D1 schools interested and a very strong D2 offer from an excellent academic school that has the curriculum she is looking for. In the end she isn't going to be a pro softball player but if it helps her get into a good school and makes it a little cheaper, that's good.

 

The other thing is that there are some really delusional and duped parents that spend thousands of $ every year playing on these super expensive travel teams or paying these recruiting services unnecessarily to get "exposure", One of the first things the college coaches tell you is don't waste you money signing up for these "priority" packages with outfits like NCSA or Field Level, they aren't relying on those services to find players. Up until this year we never paid more than $800 for a travel team, this year we bumped up to $1,700 but most of these "elite" programs are $3-10k plus they travel all over the country so add about $2-4k in travel, hotel & relate costs per year. It's nuts, people should just put that money in a 529 plan so they have it when their kids go to college.

 

We got a late start because our daughter didn't even decide she wanted to play in college until her sophomore year and everything is working out just fine. And it was really important that she came to that decision on her own. We talked through it and told her from the outset, we don't care if you play or not, whatever you decide is okay with us and we will support you any way we can. Some of these kids feel the pressure to play from their parents and really aren't into it. 

 

And we made it clear she has to pick a school that she (1) likes a lot,  (2) has the academic program(s) she wants and needs because if she decides she doesn't want to play anymore or gets injured we want he to be at a place that she is going to want to stay. Lots of parents just grab the best $ offer and the kid isn't happy there and/or doesn't get as good an education as they should.

 

I know I wrote too much but this is a real hot button for me. It makes me sick being at these camps, tournaments and showcases and seeing these delusional adults that are putting all this pressure on the kids and setting them up for failure. I'm not worried about the Zion Williamsons of the world, but the kids a couple levels down are the ones that are getting impacted more. And as a result of the snowplowing done by their parents they are not prepared for the real world or even the college world. 

 

It's ironic the parents think they are helping them out immensely and they are doing the exact opposite. Kids have to experience failure, it's part of life and learning how to deal with it is important. 

 

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Next SI is gonna write a scathing column on the dangers of rap music.

 

Seriously, how is this new? I think the only new component is technology, but this has probably been going on since the inception of sports.

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