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

Dude, my dad like owns a dealership

Mostly everyone is crazy. Very few exceptions out there really. There are coaches, and then, well there are a couple of actresses: Angelina Jolie, Winona Rider, and Zaza Gabor. But I would say that Zaza is probably the sanest of demall. Lucky you did not get slapped yet.

OK, now tell us the stuff dude.

I'm not a coach but one of the parents of a guy on my team come to EVERY track workout and basically scream at the kid the whole time when he doesn't run well, or his splits are off etc. My coach has tried asking them to leave, but they are paying a lot of money to go to the school and the athletic director obviously sided with the parents. They are crazy and once told the coach I shouldn't be on the team because I had a back workout and fell off pace so was "not a good influence".

*bad

Rrun08/12 wrote:

They are crazy and once told the coach I shouldn't be on the team because I had a back workout and fell off pace so was "not a good influence".

Did you defend yourself against those allegations?

"I made my son run a 5K the day before the championship to run with the family, I did not think it would affect his performance."

"I thought your practices were getting too easy so I had them do a hard runs that night" - So they ignored my idea of tapering their runs and the kids finished a good 2 minutes off normal pace.

Parent that showed up 1.5 hours after a meet: "Oh, I did not realize you had to stay with the kids until their ride showed up" .... wait so you ignored calls to your phone and were willing to let your kid sit out in the cold while you got your hair `did`.

End of season kid is basically walking races in the JV team. Thinking injury, cramping, sickness, etc, Nope, I found out he gets extra "screen time" by doing sports, did not matter how well he did as long as he "finished" the race. Lets say that did not last too long...

One time one of them hired a fat guy in a trench coat to kneecap a competitor for making the team, but they got caught cause they was so stupid and then the kid's shoelace came untied in the competition. Man did we laugh.

Athlete does not come out for team because parent does not like coaching. Parent brings kid to meets around the state pretending to be on team. They would go to the timing truck and get a bib and everything. They came to a meet we were competing at and pull the same stunt. She ends up scoring for our team. Had to go to the officials and tell them she was not competing with us. They were not happy...

kdcimiadso;h wrote:

Athlete does not come out for team because parent does not like coaching. Parent brings kid to meets around the state pretending to be on team. They would go to the timing truck and get a bib and everything. They came to a meet we were competing at and pull the same stunt. She ends up scoring for our team. Had to go to the officials and tell them she was not competing with us. They were not happy...

I had a similar one. Kicked a girl off the team and her parent attempted to get coaching("team manager") permission on milesplit so that he could register her and take her to meets as though she were on the team. An administrator at milesplit informed me that someone was trying to do so. The parent also contacted a meet director and said she should have been entered. I had to remove the girl from my online roster altogether to prevent the parent from trying to do so again.

How did the parent get the uniform?

What state are you in?

Thought that was ice skating and the "fat guy" only got fat in prison after getting caught. They sorta made a movie about that.

No mention of dem shoelaces tho.

A few years back my friend had a parent call him up and cuss him out because their son didn't run a big enough pr. The AD got involved and told the parents not to call/talk to him anymore.

Kid improved and ran in college. Never heard if parents gave the college coach any trouble.

How about a crazy coach thread!!!

No Hair Left To Pull Out wrote:

If you've coached high school sports for at least a season or two you surely have been subjected to at least one crazy parent that takes more of your time and energy than all the other parents combined. I had one crazy mom (worst I've ever experienced) graduate last year and a new crazy mom popped up to fill that spot this season. So far it has only been parents of boys that are either the fastest, second fastest or third fastest on the team. No exceptions with that despite coaching the girls and boys with a team of about 100 kids total.

I'd be interested to hear your more outrageous episodes.

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.

Maybe a little later

This is starting to be fun but we need a lot more involvement from the community

kdcimiadso;h wrote:

Athlete does not come out for team because parent does not like coaching. Parent brings kid to meets around the state pretending to be on team. They would go to the timing truck and get a bib and everything. They came to a meet we were competing at and pull the same stunt. She ends up scoring for our team. Had to go to the officials and tell them she was not competing with us. They were not happy...

This is especially bizarre given that the kid could just pick races outside of the high school system and run unattached.

When I was in high school, a few of us decided not to run for the school team. We just competed as a club team and ran at collegiate meets and other open competitions. Never would have even crossed my mind to pretend that I was on the school team.

The rules regarding high school athlete's competing in NCAA events may have changed in recent years (I'm still not clear on whether this is still allowed), but there are still a ton of opportunities to race outside of high school meets.

I coach at a small private school that's brand-new and doesn't have facilities yet, so we mostly practice at local parks.

At the beginning of the season one parent made a huge deal about the fact that I wanted them to run IN the parks at all times, rather than on roads - she was frustrated that it was "too boring for her son" and they should be allowed on the roads (note: we practice at 6AM). I relented and let the kids run on the roads provided it's dry and they're wearing illumination. She was pissed about that too, because she had to pony up 15 whole dollars to buy a light, but I wasn't gonna cave any further and she eventually gave in with bad grace.

Then a few weeks ago we had a big rainstorm coming through and she texted me asking why I hadn't cancelled practice yet. I told her that we were going to practice (in the park) unless there was lightning. She then responded that "running in the wet grass is too dangerous."

So I have no idea how she makes decisions about safety. Running on shoulderless roads at 6 AM with no lights is totally safe, but running on slippery grass is too dangerous. ooooookay.

Had a parent fly a helicopter over a meet and drop sneezing powder over the starting line. Her kid was the only one wearing the Rupp-approved asthma mask and won easily. Then she tried to tell me it was proof her kid should be on varsity.

My moms made her own medals and gave them to me after races in our own ceremony in the basement.