Each year, one of the middle schools in our interscholastic sports conference hosted a giant cross-country meet for sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade teams from middle schools throughout the county. All three of the middle schools in our school district consistently fielded excellent cross-country running teams, particularly our school, and we were very competitive each and every year.

Actually, this event was held in a huge park not too far from my home, so each year I would erect a protective canopy over a picnic table at that park, and we would use that as our school’s home base for the meet. Parents brought snacks and refreshments for the students, and we generally made quite an afternoon for everyone in attendance.

This one particular year, we had a very promising group of sixth-grade boys, and this was one meet where they could participate against their peers. Our group did well, and I noted one sixth-grade boy who did very well and finished near the front of the pack. Once finished, he came over to our school’s base camp and stretched out on his back to relax and catch his breath. The next thing I see is a guy straddling over him, yelling at him, and grabbing him by the shoulders. What the hell? I went over and got him off the boy and asked what he thought he was doing. He said he was the boy’s dad and was trying to encourage him to do better the next time. Strange way to do that, or so I thought.

I asked my cross-country coach about the guy. As my coach was one of my counselors and also lived in our school’s community, I thought he might know something about this dad. My coach told me this dad was a fanatic in the bad sense of the word. He had already garnered a bad reputation on the baseball Little League circuit, and we could probably expect more of the same when the student became a seventh-grader and was eligible to try out for basketball, volleyball, and track in addition to participating on the cross-country team.
The following year, the boy made the seventh-grade boys’ basketball team. He was a very good guard, and we all felt he would do well. The day after our first game (it was a seventh-grade home game with the eighth-grade team on the road) my Director of Student Affairs said we had to discuss this boy’s dad’s behavior at the game. I had not witnessed this as I went to all of our teams’ away games to keep track of our teams and particularly the behavior of our parents in attendance. My director followed through on the same mission at all of the home games. He proceeded to tell me the dad did not sit in the bleachers with the other parents but instead stood at a corner of the court and then, throughout the game, would be yelling at his son, other players, and the referees. As our next seventh-grade basketball game was also to be at home, my director and I would switch venues, and I would stay at our school to witness this for myself and take the necessary action.

Sure enough, dad showed up and stood by one of the court’s corners near one of the gym’s entrances. I made certain to be sitting with other parents in the bleachers to make certain I didn’t scare him off when he arrived. He performed as expected with his yelling at his son and other players, and I waited until he bellowed at a ref before bolting out of the stands to confront him. I did this as much for the effect I wanted to have on him as I did for the rest of the parents, too.

I escorted him to my office for a discussion on the expectations we had for the behavior of players, coaches, and spectators at any of our school activities, and that his behavior, as reported by my director and just now witnessed by me, was totally unacceptable and would not be tolerated. In the future, he had to sit with the rest of the parents and keep his comments to himself and just cheer for the team.

He proceeded to explain to me his expectation for his son which was to earn a baseball scholarship to a Division I university and hopefully do well enough to be drafted by a major league team. He had already researched a number of universities in regards to their graduation rates and other parameters so he would be ready to promote the boy to the best schools. I found this highly interesting but somewhat out of the realm of reality but kept my thoughts to myself. I was only interested in keeping this guy under control at events held at our school. To his credit, he did pretty well for the remainder of that year and for the boy’s eighth-grade year as well. We did make certain, however, that he knew we were keeping a very close eye on him at every event.

In any case, the boy eventually went on to our high school. Unfortunately, dad reverted to his old ways, and it didn’t take long before the athletic director over there had to ban him permanently from attending any of the boy’s athletic events. In addition, there was so much pressure on this kid from his dad that he actually began to perform worse each year instead of steadily improving. After high school graduation, he ended up playing baseball for a Division III college located right there in our community. What a waste.