Good Sportsmanship Should Win

The president of the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Commission has proposed that adults be required to sign an oath promising to be good sports when they enroll their children in youth sports leagues. KATHRYN MACLAREN spoke with parents and sports league officials.

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SONIA GARCIA

Soccer mom, Burbank

Signing a pledge is a good idea, but I think kids also could hold their parents accountable. You see a lot of kids getting embarrassed when their parents yell and say things to the referee. My son doesn’t like me yelling even if I’m just cheering his team on.

On our team, I have never seen any of the parents get out of hand. We are really laid-back and try to stay away from trouble. In our league, we sign a pledge agreeing to respect our volunteer referees. We also have clinics for the coaches and team moms to attend that cover the importance of good sportsmanship.

The whole reason for having your kids in sports is to keep them active and out of trouble. Those goals can be defeated if there is a parent who is out of control and doesn’t demonstrate good sportsmanship. As long as the kids play their best, that’s what’s important.

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JEFF AHERNS

Little League administrator for 10 years; 14 years as umpire

Some parents absolutely cannot behave themselves and others are absolutely wonderful. Making them sign an oath that they are going to show good sportsmanship is not going to change their attitude, and it can’t be enforced anyway. Besides, where do you draw the line on what’s unsportsmanlike conduct?

It may appear that the teams with the 9- and 10-year-olds have the most problems, but that’s just because in that age group more parents stick around for the games. In T-ball, when the kids move to the next level, you lose about 10% of the parents attending games; by the time the kids are big leaguers, you’ve lost almost all the parents because the kids are old enough to drive themselves to the game.

It’s probably about 1% to 5% of the parents who present a problem.

Parents need to remember that it’s just kids out there playing a game, to learn skills and move on up to the next level. Baseball used to be played in a sandlot where you threw down a few bases and you were lucky if you had a backstop. Nowadays you have a grass infield and a grass outfield. I can understand that it provides a much nicer atmosphere but when you do that, sometimes the parents lose perspective and forget they are watching kids play.

Most of our kids will never become professional ballplayers. Out of the 6 million kids playing worldwide, just a fraction of 1% will make it to play triple A. Most of them are going to finish high school, get a college education, go to work for a living and then maybe play softball on the weekends. Some parents forget this and think their kid is going to be a professional ballplayer. That can be normal for a parent; you always want your kid to turn out better, bigger, stronger and richer than you were, and that’s good as long as you keep it in perspective and don’t drive the kid crazy.

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JOE MONTENEGRO

Baseball and softball coach, Palmdale

Aparental pledge is a good idea, but it probably wouldn’t work because parents are very stubborn. They would sign it, but if anything negative is called against their child, they’ll go crazy anyway. As a coach, you can’t hold me responsible for the parents’ actions. I can only ask them no to be belligerent at a game like a lot of parents do.

The league should have meetings with parents about this issue. If a parent gets out of hand, it should mean immediate ejection from watching the game. Sometimes, that has been done, but not often enough to send a message to everyone. If they act up, they should be ejected. Period.

Our last game of the season was cut short and not finished because the umpire got mad when a parent made a remark about a call. That isn’t the way to handle it; the umpire was punishing the team when it was a parent making the remark. The umpire also suggested that it was my responsibility to control my parents. It’s very difficult--almost impossible--to coach a team on the field and at the same time be responsible for the parents in the stands.

As far as the coaches yelling at the umpires’ calls, well, that’s just part of the game and that will never change.

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DYAN ABRAMS

Soccer mom, Arcadia

Both our daughters play AYSO soccer. Good sportsmanship is in the rule book, and they encourage everyone to act in a sportsmanlike manner.

At the beginning of every season, you get a booklet that contains all the information you need about the soccer season and it has a list of rules and regulations. Good sportsmanship is one of the most important; and I have to say that everybody really abides by it.

We are one of the oldest regions. We have a lot of experience and really don’t have a lot of problems to deal with. I have seen a game where a referee may have to ask a parent to tone it down. It’s understood that it is OK to cheer, but you don’t yell things out to the players on the field, because that’s the coach’s job.