Youth Sports

Remember Frank Martin, took So Carolina to the Final Four last year. Always looks like an angry man on the side line. I thought these comments on parents at youth sports games was great.
https://www.sbnation.com/college-basketball/2018/3/18/17136604/frank-martin-south-carolina-parents-youth-sports

I always volunteered to keep the scorebook at my kid's CYO games, so I didn't have to sit with the parents.

One millions times "yes" to everything Coach Martin said in this. There is a growing amount of concern over overbearing parents and the effect that has on a child's development. Additionally, sport specialization and the pipeline to elite sport starting at younger ages forces some of this behavior. Kids just don't know how to "play for fun" anymore because of this and that is what youth sport should be about.

I used to umpire kids baseball games and I would say that most of the time everyone was pretty good (this was 20 years ago though).

Only two games stood out where there was a problem. The first was a game game where I just couldn't call balls and strikes with any kind of consistency. Parents from both teams where yelling at the me the whole game. I would say that I totally deserved it and understood it. That said, I was having a bad game and their yelling certainly wasn't going to help. I'm the type of fan who loves to yell at refs who are having a bad game, so I guess I didn't really learn anything from this experience

The other game involved a parent coach. The coach was arguing a foul ball call. Our discussion lasted a couple three pitches and pretty soon he was in my face. I was a 17 year old kid at the time. To this day, I don't understand what would cause a grown adult to get in the face of a kid umpiring a baseball game for a little spending money. When i ejected the coach from the game, fans from both teams cheered as they knew he deserved it. The best part was that the game was a part of a three day tournament. I ended up umpire all that teams remaining games. He never said a single word to me in those other games.

As with anything, there's a balance that needs to be reached. Be a fan of your kids, but don't go overboard and keep it positive.