Bonehead Play in Youth Sports: Punishing Coach for Rowdy Fans

What’s going on here? It’s madness, I tell you! Madness!

(Pause for dramatic flourish and mopping of fevered brow.)

All right, if not madness . . . how about just plain kooky?

It’s not a news flash to report that some adults act like colicky infants when they attend their children’s sporting events. With their screaming or taunting, parents can turn a fun day at the ol’ ball yard or gym into an “America’s Most Wanted” episode.

We know something should be done with these loudmouths, but we long ago banned public floggings. Nor is it legal to pelt thy neighbor with overripe fruit.

So, what to do?

An Orange County-based youth basketball league is endorsing a new way to corral these temporarily insane fans. The National Junior Basketball league, for kids up to age 18, is putting the onus on the coaches to control the fans.

You can’t blame the league for trying, but it seems to me that the idea is off the mark. That’s an unfair burden for the coaches, who often have enough to do trying to control themselves. Not to mention coaching the game.

Under the system, referees can hand a coach a blue card during the game if his team’s fans get out of line. If a coach gets two blue cards, he gets kicked out of the game and suspended for the next one. That’s right: not the offending fan, but the coach. If the coach gets a third card somewhere down the road, he’s suspended for the season.

A fourth card? Hard time in a state penal institution?

Well, they haven’t gone that far yet, but why not? Desperate times call for desperate measures.

It only shows you how kooky (yes, that’s the word) things are when one adult (the coach) gets punished for the behavior of another (the fan). These obnoxious parents are guilty of disturbing the peace, but why punish the coach? Besides, some of these parents are so nutty, they’ll cause a ruckus just to get a coach suspended.

League officials are not the villains here. Their rationale is that the referees can’t be expected to work the game and monitor the stands. So, the next best thing, the league figures, is to make the coaches do it.

Let’s hope the ACLU doesn’t hear about this. It sounds vaguely anti-Jeffersonian or something to eject a coach because a fan is making a fool out of himself.

Pretty pathetic, isn’t it, that we’ve come to this? And it’s not as though league officials are trying to stir up trouble. Bad parental behavior at kids’ sporting events--ranging from abusive language to physical assaults--is a nationwide problem.

In California, the governing body for high school sports has cards available to schools that want them. The cards can be given to offending parents at sporting events, informing them they’ll be escorted from the site if they don’t behave.

Here’s a thought. In the wake of the terrorist attacks, why not extend the concept now used on some airplanes. You know the drill: If you see a suspicious passenger trying to light up his shoe, you pounce.

Why not at a kiddie basketball game? You see a parent ruining the game for everyone else, you take action. The old Woody Allen line comes to mind: “What I wouldn’t give for a sock full of manure.”

Sadly, that would probably just cause more trouble.

I vote for public embarrassment. How about a plan where the game would be stopped if a parent went over the line? The fan would be identified and asked to step onto the field of play.

Then, an official would simply say into the microphone, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have with us Mr. Joe Fan. He may be a fine person during the week, but at various times during today’s game, he’s been a royal jerk. We’re sorry you’ve had to listen to him. That’s his daughter, Sally, out there playing her heart out. Too bad, isn’t it, her day is being ruined by her father?”

Madness? Kookiness?

Sorry, folks, we’re already there.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to [email protected].