High School Coaches: Humor Me With Your "Crazy Parent" Stories

I think a coach is playing with fire if they hold practice and it's over 100 degrees outside. It sounds like everything was fine, but playing with fire nonetheless.

Craziest parent I remember from my HS days was a father of a teammate who would come to most meets and actually cheer equally for us as he would for his own son. He even knew our names and encouraged us to run faster or that if we were going fast, that we were doing great.

Oh wait, that would be crazy in TODAY'S world. Twenty years ago this was considered normal.

I coach track and coached basketball. Believe me coaching track is a walk in the park compared to basketball, where every move is a mistake by the coach and after every game the parents are calling the principal about everything that you are doing to keep Little Johnny from that D1 scholarship and NBA career.

Track on my team usually sorts itself out with the good kids competing for state medals and the bad kids usually enjoying themselves and hopefully not causing too much trouble. The one exception was several years ago with the McBlobus family.

1. A week after track started Mr. McBlobus called me and wanted to know if it was too late for his daughter Katy McBlobus to do track. I let her on the team and the first day at practice the softball coaches show up. Turns out Katy had tried out for softball and been put on the JV and not the varsity and the parents were furious. A big meeting ensues with the AD and Katy is on the track team.

2. Katy is a freshman and in our first invitational we enter our 4 freshman in a frosh 4x 4 . Since Katy is our fastest runner with an 82, she runs anchor. We end up far back in the 6 team race. The McBlobbus parents start shouting obscenities at me for humiliating their daughter by making her run far behind everybody. Monday at school the principal calls me and tells me the McBlobbuses called and said I humiliated their daughter.

3. I put Katy in the 200 were she runs a 34. The 200 runs 3 or 4 heats with only the fastest scoring. Katy usually runs the 4th heat. After each meet I draw up a sheet showing how many points each kid on the team scores. Since Katy isn't in the scoring heat she gets no points. The McBlobbus show up at a practice furious. They've seen the sheets and tell me they know the top 3 gets points and Katy has been in the top 3 in her heat several times and is not getting credit for her points. I try to explain it to no avail. Two days later I am called in to see the AD. The McBlobbuses have called and told him I'm cheating their daughter out of points. The AD asks me to give Katy points even though she isn't actually scoring points

4. I move Katy to the 800 and by the end of the year she runs a 2:57, not great but fast enough to run in our league championships. The day after I tell Katy she will run, the McBlobbuses show up at practice and say she can't run because her dance recital is a day after the championships and she is in a travel softball game the day after that and she would be too tired. I tell the McBlobbuses she has to run. The next day Katy shows up with a huge brace on her knee claiming she hurt it jumping over hurdles . When I reminded her she hadn't jumped over any hurdles , she said she did it without me seeing it. That night Mr. McBlobbus calls up and claims she tore her ACL and couldn't run in the meet but could do the dance recital and softball game. He tells me he is thinking of suing the school because I didn't supervise Katy and she jumped over the hurdles because I wasn't supervising her, When I tell him the hurdles were locked up, he proceeds to tell me how Katy is extremely bright and figured out how to get them out even if locked

5. The next week Mr. McBlobus calls me up and tells me Katy didn't tear her ACL after all and played great in the softball game and had a phenomenal dance recital. He tells me she is THINKING about doing cross country and wants me to run with her 5 days a week during the summer and will decide the first week or school if she wants to do cross-country or soccer,

6. The next year, Mc. McBlobus calls me up and tells me Katy is trying to decide whether to do softball or track. He tells me the softball coach has already guaranteed she will pitch every game and she'll only consider track if I guarantee she will make the state championships.

Ninedees wrote:

Craziest parent I remember from my HS days was a father of a teammate who would come to most meets and actually cheer equally for us as he would for his own son. He even knew our names and encouraged us to run faster or that if we were going fast, that we were doing great.

Oh wait, that would be crazy in TODAY'S world. Twenty years ago this was considered normal.

+1

Not sure if this story is true or not but it wouldn't surprise me - I would never coach a team today - I'm surprised most schools find people to coach a whole season hearing some of these stories - if I was being led into the AD or Principals office for standard coaching practices because a parent was upset I'd quit on the spot

B. Miles in da hizzle!

fdfsdfasdf wrote:

We should start a similar thread about the best hooking up with hot parent stories. There's got to be a few of those floating around.

I had one parent who would watch practice almost every day, but never talk to me. That is until the day his son was sent home from practice for not wearing tights or pants (a requirement when the temps are below a certain level and for all warmups). He showed up, tried to argue with me by pointing out that the throwers aren't wearing pants, I said they have their own event coach with his own event rules. He then pointed out that the girls didn't have to wear pants/tights. At that point I said that the girls are a totally different team and walked away. He stood around for about ten minutes taking pictures of athletes not wearing pants/tights.

I had another who harassed me for two seasons claiming I should be doing head to head time trials for varsity places instead of using times in meets and what occurs at practice. The second season he started lying to me about times his kid had run during indoor season, apparently forgetting that results are online and that I am intelligent enough to look them up. I made his kid run a JV race to prove he should be varsity at the conference meet and, when he ran a time nowhere near our varsity, I never heard from him again.

Ran HS track in NYC 55+ years ago. Rarely, close to never, did any parents attend our meets.

Different times and places.

I had a mom attempt to hire a hitman to kill the mother of her daughter's junior high school running rival. The plan ultimately failed when the man she asked to perform the hit turned her in to the authorities.

Deep South wrote:

I think a coach is playing with fire if they hold practice and it's over 100 degrees outside. It sounds like everything was fine, but playing with fire nonetheless.

I coached in Southern California for a number of years.

I f you can't practice when it is 100 outside, you will lose about 1/3 of your workouts.

I never had a single runner have a problem with heat issues. That is what water is for.

100% true . Only the names were changed to protect the guilty ,

Deep South wrote:

I think a coach is playing with fire if they hold practice and it's over 100 degrees outside. It sounds like everything was fine, but playing with fire nonetheless.

Both AAU and USATF held JO games in Houston. This past Aug, heat index got up to 113 on day. Not fun to run in that heat but still many records were set. It was not fun to be in the stands or walk across the concrete parking lot either. I think that both organizations screwed the pooch with that choice.

But, participation in sports is always optional. Tell your kid to stay out of practice if you fear for his/her life. OK so s/he don't practice and coach may push them to the back of the line. No big deal.

It is more difficult for the Football players who wear helmets.

Sound like the skinny distance runners having to wear tights in the cold was the problem.

Bro - Mama wrote:

I coached in Southern California for a number of years.

I f you can't practice when it is 100 outside, you will lose about 1/3 of your workouts.

I never had a single runner have a problem with heat issues. That is what water is for.

Southern CA 100F is different from East coast 100F. Dew points.

I didn't coach the team, but in college, a freshman runner's father would attend practices 2-3 times a week. The father lived 6hrs away from the college campus.

Deep South wrote:

I think a coach is playing with fire if they hold practice and it's over 100 degrees outside. It sounds like everything was fine, but playing with fire nonetheless.

If you're anywhere in the South it's just not something you can avoid. The team I coach now works out at 6 AM, but in my high school experience not being allowed to practice in >100-degree temps would've meant we couldn't start working out until late September.

Steeeeve wrote:

Sound like the skinny distance runners having to wear tights in the cold was the problem.

He did say "or pants."

I'm going to have to start complaining more to my kids coaches. I've been having my kids talk to their coaches to work through any issues or problems. Didn't know all of this was going on so now I can tell them when they are doing stupid things.

Here's one. Last year I started a team at a small rural high school. We had modest success despite our small size. However when I wanted to continue and have the kids to do track, the school's principal and AD said no claiming it would cost too much for the kids to run unattached at meets and the parents & the kids believed them. Long story short everybody turned on me when I tried to show them the school had no right to discriminate against them when it would cost hardly anything ( it would've just involved running, wouldn't have done the field part )

Had a 4x100m team with a chance to go to State. Problem was our lead-off, who was our best returning guy, was not running well. He had a bit of a hammy problem and was getting his butt kicked every meet. Meanwhile, I had a first-year member of the team who was coming into his own and winning meets in the 100m for us. After one particularly awful performance from our lead-off, I decided to make the switch. So I put the newcomer on the relay in place of the guy who wasn't running well.

This prompted a phone call from the replaced kid's dad every single night for a week. Guy tried every tactic in the world: being nice, being mean, talking to the AD, talking to my assistants, etc. He even showed up to several practices. I said it was real simple, the new kid would run this week (Conference), they would have a race-off on Monday, and whomever won the race-off would run at Sectionals (State-qualifier). The dad's suggested solution was to just let his son run and not give the other kid a chance at all.

So we run with the new kid at Conference, and we run a full second faster than they ran the week before (every other sprinting event ran within 0.10 seconds of the week before; the 4x100m was the ONLY outlier) and broke our school record. The dad and mom both send me e-mails about what an awful coach I was and how I had ruined their son's confidence.

The race-off for the Sectional spot was on Monday. The replaced kid's dad said he was going to show up to make sure it was "fair" because he thought I was railroading his kid. He didn't show up, but I had two different cameras on the race, had a different coach start them, and even let the replaced kid pick if he wanted the inside or outside lane (there were a few other kids in the race too, just to make it feel more like a meet).

Needless to say, the new kid smoked the crap out of the replaced kid in the run-off. We qualified for State a few days later. Parents never said anything to me about it ever again.