Most Hated Sports People
On the subject of sports we don’t like, more that hating a particular sport, I hate a particular type of person: the over-zealous sport parent.

Almost everyday I take our dog to a grassy field that sits adjacent to our university’s stadium. It is nice because it is big, it is fenced, and on one side it is lined with trees. Here the dog can run, sniff in the trees, and play ball should he desire.

When we arrived today, there was a father with his son, who must have been about ten, doing soccer drills. The father wanted his son to do sprints, dribbling, and shooting drills. As our dog went to sniff for squirrels among the trees, I observed these two. Having both played soccer and coached a youth team, I am familiar with the sport and the drills one must do. I could tell the father was an amateur.

But he was an amateur who thought he was a professional, a mean one at that. He was yelling at the kid the whole time we were there, telling his son how he was doing everything wrong. It was clear to me that the father did not know what he was doing. First, the drills did not follow any kind of logical order. Second, when the kid did something wrong, the father would show him what he should have done by means of example. However, the father would also do the drill or move wrong. He was a horrible soccer player. Last, and most important, he was demeaning the kid. A good coach never does that.

The worst part of it all was that I could tell the kid was not having fun. How could he? Sports should be fun for children. Unfortunately in schools and among youth sports organizations in this country the emphasis is on winning.

Growing up in Mexico I played soccer everyday, wherever I could. All you needed was a ball, or even some kind of round object, and something to mark the goals. Sometimes we did not even need that. We were content to just kick the ball around on the street. I also played for my school, but we really did not care whether we won or lost. The point was that it was fun.

When I moved to this country, I wanted to play soccer, but pickup games were unheard of. The school team was extremely competitive. After a few weeks on the team, I got frustrated with the coach yelling at everyone. I quit. It was not fun.

While I was unhappy with the coach, I think the pressure comes from parents like the one who I saw today. Coaches need to win or else they are fired or in some cases assaulted by parents. It is good for parents to spend time with the children, helping them play better. They should do this so that it is fun, so that a bond can be created. Parents should not vicariously seek sports glory through their children, abusing them in the process.

I felt bad for the kid today. He will probably never come to love soccer the way I do, but there was little I could do. After our dog got his exercise, we went home. At least WE had fun.