This blog entry and the next several will all deal with kids and sports, so feel free to skip if you aren’t interested.

A recent series of events at athletic events has shaken me out of my code of silence.  Ever since my oldest nephew started playing t-ball twenty years ago, I have been in the position as spectator to observe a variety of behavior. Some has been wonderful, a lot of it outrageous, but I’ve stood firm in my belief that none of it was my business. The only time it was my business was when I was a college coach and official, and even then, I only had to eject one parent from a game. 

But that was another phase of my life, long ago. I’ve been busy doing a lot of other things since then. So, on a recent evening, when I had the opportunity to attend a highly competitive college hockey game, I jumped at it. 

I don’t know what I expected –  the excited, slightly buzzed fans of my college days. A loud and crazy band. Warrior face paint perhaps. By the end of the first period I was so thoroughly disgusted with the behavior of the crowd–adult and students–that I opted to go watch the rest of the game on the tv in hall, where I kept shaking my head and thinking, Man, have I been out of touch with things.

To call what  I observed abusive doesn’t even cover it. Since when did it become a personal insult to a 50 year old man that the 19 year old on the ice missed a pass? Enough to scream what he was going to do to this player’s mother after the game. You’d think these players were guilty of felonies the way they were being cursed by the people that sat around me. The behavior of the college students was inexcusable, as they waved signs about the joke of a state school their competitors attended, yelled sexual insults, and declared en masse how much the goalie “SUCKED” ( was there ever a more idiotic term?) and flung the f-bomb around blithely despite the multitude of children at the game. 

I watched as one boy of about 7, wearing the oversized jersey of this college team, turned and studied all the people behind him: the anger, the insults, the foul language. You could just see the wheels turning as he absorbed it. 

When I mentioned all this to someone later, he said, “Oh, that’s just college hockey. That’s how people get.”

“That’s a cop-out,” I said. “You’ve gotten used to it.” He looked at me in surprise. “I don’t care what people say to justify it. It’s like the teachers always used to say to us at school when we misbehaved: would you speak like that at home? would you behave like that in front of your parents?  And we all answered no, remember?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“We’d get killed, for one thing. But because we respected them, I suppose.”

“Bingo. I mean, Fenway Park has resorted to making a statement before game asking people to watch their language. Do we have to have reminders at every sporting event, ‘Don’t swear and don’t threaten to rape player’s relatives?’  Do people not know how to behave respectfully in public?”

“They’re just having fun.”

“Telling the goalie to go f*** himself is fun? I keep thinking how students would riot if I told them to go f*** themselves. I’d be nailed to a tree.”

“You’re supposed to know better. You’re supposed to be respectful.”

“And no one else is?”

I say all of this at the risk of sounding uptight. Or backwards, or uncool or righteous or any number of things. I bring all of this up because this is what is trickling down to kids’ sports. Dex said he has been told to f-off a ton of times this year during games. The locker room trash talk is all about how much the other team sucks. Parents blow up at the players or coaches for god knows what reason. 

And I am left with one question: What is everyone so angry about?

 -Andi

I’d love your feedback on this one, y’all. What do you make of this?