Mental Health Perspectives

Featuring Dr. John Huber and Kristin Walker-------------------------------------------------Why Sports Parents Sometimes Behave So BadlyThey yell at the referees, they yell at their kids, they yell at the opposing team and some even yell at their own team. They are rude, loud and many are aggressive. In a word, they are obnoxious.Who are they? They are parents behaving badly at their child’s sporting events.A recent New York Times article with video titled, “Parents Behaving Badly: Youth Sports Crisis Caught on Video,” by Bill Pennington, highlighted some pretty disgusting behavior. In the video, you can see and hear a parent at an eight-year-old youth soccer game hurling obscenities at a referee as he walked to his car. Another video showed a fan screaming obscenities while viciously kicking a ball into a nearby teenage referee.According to the National Association of Sports Officials, harassment of referees has become so egregious that 70 percent of them quit within three years. Because of this, there is no