Playing off of last week’s posting about coaching Little League, this week we will be discussing the aspect of being a spectator Dad at youth sports games. Dad and mom always try to expose their children to as many activities as possible, sports being the most important. It teaches discipline, hard work, perseverance, and most importantly: how to eat sunflower seeds. However, Dad has another motive besides living his athletic dreams through you, he wants to heckle.
Dads are proud of their sons; they want the best for them. So when some umpire calls a strike when Stevie Wonder could have seen it was a ball from a mile away, Dad is going to let that zebra hear about it. When that football referee calls a hold against his son (it was actually a full on tackle), Dad will respond with heckling. The games are peppered with “C’MON REF! WHAT GAME ARE YOU WATCHING?” or “GEEZ UMP, THEY’RE JUST KIDS!! LET EM PLAY!” The ref is in a lose-lose situation because if he makes calls in one team’s favor, the other team Dads will let him know about it. Basically the ref will get battered like Steve Bartman with slurs and insults no matter what. Dads are a passionate species.
So remember when the summer sun gets high and baseball is in full swing, or when the leaves show their true colors and the boys of fall are on the gridiron, Dads will converge on their local little league and pee wee arenas to do what they love to do. Dream of their kids becoming professional athletes, Yeah, we already have Timmy with a personal trainer and we are holding him back a year so he will be bigger for football tryouts. Sixth grade won’t be so bad again. And of course, that voicing of their opinions in the form of heckling that causes all the moms to shake their heads. It is their duty.
