| "Some Cynical Guy" No. 14:
September 29, 2000
Sports Parents: Menace to Society?
I generally don't have to go searching for things
to be cynical about; they tend to walk right up to me and clunk me
on the noggin. Not long ago, for example, I was strolling through
one of my favorite parks -- a long, lushly vegetated expanse of
green bisected by a rushing stream. It was the sunset hour: the sky
had begun its gentle transition from blue to peach; the willows
along the stream waved wistfully in the early evening breeze. I was
savoring one of those rare moments when you forget about death and
declining mutual funds; for once, all was right with the world.
Then, around a bend in the path, I saw it, the terrible thing: a
field overrun with miniature soccer players. So tiny were these
athletes that a team of Little Leaguers would have towered above
them like giraffes. So young were they that most of them would be
hard-pressed to spell 'ball.' Of course, you could say the same
about the average college team, so let me be explicit: these
particular soccer players were somewhere between four and six years
of age. Boys and girls played together; they scampered about the
field like puppies clad in teal-colored t-shirts, presided over by
an animated coach who blew his whistle periodically to coordinate
their movements upon the field of combat. 'All right, spread out!'
he barked in the cheerfully brisk manner of a gym teacher. 'Drop
back now -- that's the way!' 'Defend that goal!,' screamed a
dedicated soccer mom from the sidelines. The kids scrambled after
the ball, sometimes tumbling into little wiggling heaps on the
grassy field. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, but the social
observer in me was inclined to shudder at the spectacle.
When I was a kid we played freely among our own
kind, perpetuating the ancient culture of childhood. We pretended to
be pirates, cowboys and Indians, army-men or zombies. We flipped
baseball cards, shot marbles, climbed trees and slid down snowy
slopes, occasionally on sleds. We recited rhymes and played games
that had been passed down to us through numberless generations of
kids, most of whom were probably long dead. We quoted the immortal
lines of those former kids, like 'Liar, liar, pants on fire!' or
'Step on a crack, break your mother's back.' In response to an
insult like 'You're a booger-brain,' we'd confidently lash back with
that ageless and foolproof retort, 'I KNOW you are but what am I?'
And we did it all without rules, schedules or adult supervision. We
were happy, vibrant little savages. Today the average kid needs an
electronic personal organizer to keep up with all the structured
activities that have been laid out by overzealous parents. Gone are
the days when a kid would simply show up on a friend's doorstep and
ask, 'Mrs. Ockleman, can Butch come out and play?' (Note that there
were no neatly manicured Tylers and Codys in those days.) Now you
have to make an appointment, and odds are that the interface will be
a group sporting event supervised by hypercompetitive chino-clad
parents with manic tendencies.
You have to watch out for these parents -- they're
dangerous. Reports of parental violence at kids' sporting events
have been escalating ominously, like road rage or irate executives
behaving badly aboard jetliners. You hear about a broken jaw here, a
group brawl there -- parents challenging parents to fisticuffs, moms
and dads alike, over what used to be considered mere games. Nobody
should have to go home with an even lower IQ than the numbskull who
bashes his brains at a juvenile sporting event. Not long ago I read
in the paper that a father in Massachusetts was charged with
manslaughter for beating another dad to death during a children's
hockey match. Imagine driving your kid to a game and having to leave
in a body bag. And all because some temporarily deranged
paterfamilias thought his son's team had been given a bad break that
might cost them a victory. Was it Patrick Henry who said, "Give
me victory or I'll give you death"? I'd guess that the parents
who succumb to sports rage are a tad defensive about their own
shortcomings on or off the playing field. They're desperate to
succeed through their offspring, a genetically programmed survival
trait gone haywire. They require reassurance that, despite a family
history of corpulence and attention-deficit disorder, their genes
might have what it takes to mingle someday with those of a Kennedy
or at least a soap-opera star. Why are they so frantic? Their
genetic destiny is on the line, yet the matter is entirely out of
their hands. They're confined to the grandstands while their
offspring prove themselves or stumble in the arena.
Olympic parents are an especially driven lot: they
effectively turn their gifted progeny into cloistered professionals
from the age of four or five, grooming and isolating them like
baroque castrati, propelling them to attain such an absurdly narrow
species of excellence -- in the butterfly stroke, on the balance
beam, or performing a triple lutz on ice -- that if they fall on
their little rumps during their moment in the spotlight, you can
dismiss the last ten or twelve years of their lives as a wipeout,
comparable to having squirreled all your savings into a single stock
that tanks overnight. If they defy the odds and actually emerge
victorious, they might adorn a cereal box for a few months, then
quietly fade from view. After all, where are the PROFESSIONAL
swimmers, gymnasts and track stars? They're about as abundant as
dodos and Latin majors. The young champions have peaked in their
teens or twenties, and everything that follows will seem like a long
and lugubrious anticlimax. But the parents of the victorious ones
will be able to shuffle off to the hereafter with contented smiles
on their faces. Even the sires and dams of the also-rans can look
back with upon their vicarious achievements with beaming pride;
they'll have scrapbooks and shelves full of shiny mementos to prove
the worthiness of their genes.
When I spotted those miniature soccer players in
the park, kicking and tumbling as they chased the ball, I think I
feared for their futures. I wondered if their parents would
micromanage their leisure in a manner that stripped them of a kid's
right to disorderly amusement. If these feisty little five-year-olds
were already playing organized ball, would they sneer at primitive
kid-games like freeze-tag and hopscotch? Were the parents already
preparing their kids to compete for admission to Princeton or --
even more revered in this neck of the woods -- Penn State? Were they
turning their progeny into latter-day Spartans, all grit and sinew
at the expense of useless traits like tenderness, imagination and
the ability to fly a kite? I doubt if these sports parents
remembered their Greek history, but the fact is that the
well-ordered Spartans defeated the philosophical Athenians and
toppled them from power forever. While I watched the little soccer
players respond to the whistles and commands of their coach as they
romped on that field, maybe I was fearing for MY future as well. You
see, I'm something an Athenian myself.
© 2000 by
Bridget Petrella Media Relations. "Some Cynical Guy" appears here by
permission of the publisher.
"Some Cynical Guy" column archive:
2002
81 -- A Brisk Walk Through the Ruins
80 -- The Fountain of Futility
79 -- Farewell to the Big House
78 -- The Cynical Guy Contemplates Cell Phones
77 -- Rich and Poor in Paradise
76 -- Dead Ducks: A Tale of the Food Chain
75 -- Old Comedians Just Fade Away
74 -- Suburbia Comes to Manayunk
73 -- When Nestlings Won't Leave the Nest
72 -- The Curse of High Standards
71 -- Inside the House of Horrors
70 -- The Post-Yuppie Handbook
69 -- Spring Reflections
68 -- Priestly Perversions
67 -- British Teeth: An Apology
66 -- The Sniffling Snout
65 -- Bullies with Social Skills
64 -- Supermarket Rage
63 -- Is the U.S. Really the Greatest?
62 -- The Holes in Our Armor
61 -- A Breath of Used Air
60 -- The Cynical Guy Has Sex
59 -- Let's Abolish the Seven-Day Week!
2001
58 -- Why Worry About the Future of Books?
57 -- The Friendly Face of Evil
56 -- Why We Live Where We Live
55 -- The Cynical Guy Discovers Talk Radio
54 -- Kite-Flying and Other Crimes
53 -- My Night as a Socialite
52 -- Gardening Is Not for Sissies
51 -- Invaders of the Honeysuckle
50 -- To Be a Cat
49 -- The Upside of Terrorism
48 -- The Vanishing Nerd
47 -- Anger Management for Cynics
46 -- Let's Level the Playing Field for Disadvantaged WASPs
45 -- First Impressions, Lasting Impressions
44 -- Close Encounter with a Go-Getter
43 -- Cheering for a Perennial Loser
42 -- The Cynical Guy Reads the Tabloids
41 -- When Does the Good Part Begin?
40 -- Confessions of an Internet Addict
39 -- The Decline of Punctuation and Civilization
38 -- Oh Baby, What a Nightmare!
37 -- The Cynical Guy Watches 'Xena: Warrior Princess'
36 -- A Night-Stroll into the Void
35 -- In Search of the Elusive Wild Tomato
34 -- Getting in Touch with Your Inner S.O.B.
33 -- The Lure of the Lurid
32 -- Black Tie and Beard Stubble
31 -- In Heaven There Is No Pez
30 -- Did You Make the Forbes Celebrity 100 List?
29 -- Redesigning Mt. Rushmore
28 -- On Listening to Dead Voices
27 -- Selling Your Soul on eBay
26 -- Sympathy for Colonel Klink
25 -- Democratic Celebrities in Exile
24 -- High School Revisited
23 -- A Farewell to Bachelorhood
2000
22 -- Requiem for a Middleweight
21 -- Is There a Gene for Tackiness?
20 -- How the Beautiful People Entertain Themselves
19 -- The Cynical Guy Gets Behind the Wheel
18 -- The Fickle Finger of Fame
17 -- Adventures in Bodybuilding
16 -- Some Don't Like It Hot
15 -- The Cynical Guy Watches Oprah
14 -- Sports Parents: Menace to Society?
13 -- Airfare Is No Fair at All
12 -- There's No Such Thing as 'New and Improved'
11 -- Celtomania!
10 -- The Naked Pate
9 -- Vanishing Act
8 -- Bush vs. Gore: It Could Be Worse
7 -- Who Wants to Be a Survivor?
6 -- Adventures in Heart Attack Prevention
5 -- Where Men Are Men
4 -- Thoughts While Listening to the Car Radio
3 -- History Is HISTORY
2 -- The Great Casino
1 -- Greetings from Your New Cynical Guy
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