Here’s a little test for all you parents out there.
Your daughter, who plays first base for her school’s softball team, skips a game to attend a prom. In response, the coach suspends her from the team in accordance with the stated rules. What is your appropriate response?
1) Explain to your daughter that actions have consequences, that she should have tried to work around both events, or simply accept the situation.
2) Appeal to the coach for clemency.
3) Appeal to the principal for clemency.
4) Threaten a lawsuit if she is not reinstated.
Sounds good to me. ‘Cept I’d assume the coach would have better skills at baseball bat weilding…
When I read about these incidences of coach or referee or umpire rage, I wonder what the thoughts of the kid are. Is he/she equally pathologic as to have actually seen some merits to his/her parents action or is so embarrassed that they are afraid to show their face around their friends for a while. Makes one wish you could turn the clock back to when neighborhood sports consisted more of informal pick up games than these ultraorganized sports leagues that seem to foment this sort of parental aggression. Perhaps I’m just being a fogey and not facing reality, though.
I am not defending anybody…..but what kind of school has sporting events scheduled for prom night???.
You deffinatly have to be wary of those art teachers…I think there is a little beat-down in all of em’.
Do NOT color outside the lines in that man’s class.
Hmm- My daughter missed her first softball game because she decided to go to her last volleyball practice of the (overlapping) season.
Now if the coach suspends her for a game then my wife would never forgive me, but if I took a bat to his head, I would knock myself unconscious and then she could play.
???
I think I’ll just let her play and save myself the trouble.
That’s just beautiful. A teacher is the deranged parent who was so out of control that beating the coach with a bat was the proper response? A teacher?
Notre Dame High School should be very proud.
A few weeks back I attended a kid’s basketball game where the parents and fans of the winning team, winning by a 2:1 margin, booed and heckled the referees for tight calling of their star player, there by stopping them from winning even bigger margin. One parent even got ejected.
At the game’s end, my outloud complaint about poor sportmanship got a “stuff it” from the parent of the star player player.
Since when isn’t winning enough ? These people need a life.
#1.
Quote of the Day:
“He wishes it never happened and, quite honestly, he is a compassionate human being.”
– Lawyer for the accused
fwiw – I usually sit with the opposing team’s parents during little league games.
That way when I heckle the umpire, the umpire’s wife, makde comments on his sexual deficiencies, and poor judgement and vision, my kid’s team gets the benefits.
Who was more surprised? The player when she was given a ridiculous punishment for attending the prom, or the softball coach when he took a beat down from the art teacher.
If I was that softball coach I would leave town quietly and hope that no one ever heard about the incident — oops, too late for that.
I’m really not belittling parents going after coaches — they should be prosecuted and then banned from any school events for life, but this one is too funny when you find out about the art teacher.
None of my art teachers could lift a bat, let alone wield it.
Notre Dame High art teacher beating down a Sacred Heart Academy coach?
Thank God for the teachings of good, Christian values like Forgiveness, Turning The Other Cheek, and Love Thy Neighbor are in full swing–oops no pun intended.
I can see the new Sermon On The Mount now:
“And seeing the multitdes of fans, he went up to the coach and laid into him. And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, ‘Blessed are the bitch-slappers, for they, truly, will inherit the Earth.”
#6 – claim an ankle injury trying on the prom heels.
Some quite humorous comments here, and it is appreciated. Nonetheless, this can be serious business. Some years ago, when I lived in South Florida, I was doing some umpiring in an industrial slowpitch league. One of my fellow umps was also coaching a Babe Ruth (14-15 year olds) team in Miami. He kept telling me how they were perpetually short on umps and that they actually paid (gasp!) their umps a small stipend per game, and that I should give it a try.
I held back on it for a while because I didn’t know if I could call balls and strikes properly with baseball pitching (it’s much different in slowpitch). But he nearly had me convinced, and he told me he could get a pitcher and an ump to work with me to get my strike zone dialed in. The night that I was supposed to let him know, an enraged parent shot and killed an umpire at one of their games.
Needless to say, I turned it down.
I would probably go for #1 possibly try #2, considering the prom is a school function, and I think the athletic department and activities people would compare calandars before scheduling stuff.
We had similar issues with my daughter, although it was competing activities. She is on her middle school track team, and on the school drama club (which is about to do their play). She had to make the choices of going to meets or going to drama. She ended up compromising and skipping half the dramas and half the meets. Her coach was okay with it, her drama teacher not so much, but she got over it.
All I’m going to say is “Yikes”.
Well, I did notice that the article said she skipped the game to attend “a” prom, not “the” prom. Plenty of kids attend other schools’ proms, so it may not be an issue of conflicting schedules by her school, just her choice to attend “a” dance instead of playing in the game.
This is pretty basic stuff. YOu ask the coach for clemency before the game. When my kids have a conflict between any of Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Swim meets, band, orchestra, music lessons, or whatever, we always ask the coach/teacher/troop leader beforehand how important that event is and how important our kid’s participation is to the event. Then we discuss consequences with the kids, we let them decide, and we communicate that decision to the coach. We’ve never had a problem. This ain’t rocket science, it’s common courtesy. What the heck is the matter with these people?
Ok, that coach needs to file an immediate civil suit and hit him up for losing his coaching career.
How is this guy ever going to show his face around other coaches, “Hey, aren’t you the dude that got owned by an art teacher?”
There’s a career-ender for you.
Odd coincidence?
now in a perfect world NO ONE WOULD SCHEDULE A GAME During a PROM. the coach is at fault here. I would go for clemency from the principle. just because I know how they think. One loud parent can reak havok with an entire administration.. reguardless of whether the parent is right.