The Beast Called Conceit

© 9/25/2000

Conceit: too high an opinion of oneself; vanity. So says Webster. Conceit: amazing stupidity contained by an ever-expanding ego. So say I.

Youngsters all over this great country play in organized, team sports every year. It's been happening for as long as anyone can remember. From venerable Little League baseball, which apparently started it all, to Pop Warner football, kids are playing. New sports have joined in with these two traditional sports. Hockey, both roller and ice, and soccer have become popular among kids looking for fun during the year. Organizations have sprung up around these new sports to help support the kids with equipment, venues, scheduled competition, and referees. All of these organizations have doctrines that teach fundamental sportsmanship. This is exactly what they are supposed to do.

Kids once were learning how to field a grounder or throw a pass. Dreams were being dreamt and, make no mistake here, this level of sport is all about dreams. Imagining yourself the next Willie Mays or Joe Montana is what it is all about. Everyone wanted to win and there was great frustration when that didn't happen. But that was it. Fifteen minutes after the game, both teams were eating ice cream at Dairy Queen.

But this isn't true any longer. Violence has erupted in the field and on the ice. Kids are fighting, trying to hurt their opponents. Coaches and parents are attacking each other and, amazingly, the very kids they purport to be helping. Something has been broken but what is it?

At a junior league hockey game, a parent assaults and kills a hockey coach because the kids were threatening the safety of his son by playing the game "too hard." At a T-Ball game, many parents get into an on-field pushing and shoving match concerning the score while the bewildered six-year-olds watch. This is at a game where the score is not "officially" kept. During a junior hockey game, skates are thrown at the heads of young players who are doing nothing more than playing well. At a Little League game, several shots are fired at a 16-year-old umpire for calling a 9-year-old player out at home. Last year, one coach slit the throat of the opposing coach during an on-field argument. Among the hundred plus preteens watching this event is both coaches' sons. At another Little League game, a coach punches a child's father who was questioning why his son didn't get to play. The coach was arrested but not before explaining that the child was a terrible player and didn't deserve to be on his team. Parents at a football game break the jaw of a referee whose call went against their team. Two mothers beat up a 13-year-old soccer official because, they claim, "she missed a call and cost them the game." Most recently, a fight breaks out between the winning and losing team at a hotly contested football game. The coaches and parents join the kids in the melee.

The coaches and parents join the kids in the melee!

The very ones on whom we count to be mature and maintain decorum become three-year-olds again. What is happening here?

Little League, and its counterparts in other sports, promote a noble idea: teach sportsmanship through competitiveness. Let the kids have a place to dream, have fun, and, within the context of the sport, be safe from harm. No matter how noble the organization is, however, it is still run by the people in the locality in which it is played. The local area has different standards and, as such, the local chapter of the organization will have a different flavor. For example, a little league ball game played in Show Low, Arizona, will have a much different atmosphere than a game played in Los Angeles, California. That's why the initial impulse is to assume that these events happened in a big city where personal indifference and lack of respect for others are at their highest. Some of these events, however, happened in smaller towns, away from the media and population centers. In short, this phenomenon seems to be happening all across the country. As such, it cannot be pigeonholed so easily.

While bad blood and violent events have always occurred sporadically in youth sports, never has it been with this frequency and this voracity. Sure, we now live in a more violent society. Is that the cause? Has our disdain for each other led to the point where a kid called out at home plate should cause a riot? Has our lack of self-control and inability to take responsibility for our own actions led to the point where a call by a referee or umpire should lead to murder? The answer is a simple "No, none of these reactions are correct." So, why are they happening?

As a society, we have, for some reason, grown more tolerant of violence. That has led to more aggression being used during interpersonal confrontation. I have, unfortunately, seen this disgusting display of aggression first-hand having been both a coach and an umpire in Little League. Before I continue, I want to add that most of the adults involved in these leagues are bright, happy people who are genuinely concerned about the children. Only a small percentage, maybe lower than 1 percent, are at fault here. Unfortunately for us all, that small percentage is quite effective in their disruption.

Many coaches are failed players who didn't make it to the level they desired. Convinced that they were cheated out of their future, they boost their ego by coaching in these leagues. Many of these coaches help build the league itself, thus giving them control over team selection. They then stock their teams with all the talent in the area, assuring that they will win every game and assuring that the other kids on the other teams will have no competitive chance. After winning the league championship for seven straight years, other amazingly dense people believe the coach is brilliant. "How did the big leagues pass you up, Bob?" I've heard that line. Bob's coaching: berating a 13 year-old shortstop who dropped a fly ball. Bob's coaching style: call time-out, walk out to the kid, and drag him off the field by the arm, all the while calling him the stupidest person he had ever seen. Only when he was in the dugout did he send out another kid to play shortstop. The kid missed a fly ball and Bob's ego was in danger. After watching that, it's easy to understand why the "big leagues" passed on him.

The parents are no better. Often surly and rude, they boo umpires, opposing coaches, and, unfortunately, opposing players. Fragile self-esteem exists in youngsters and it can be easily destroyed by this type of callous behavior. Convinced that their children cannot make mistakes of any nature, like dropping a fly ball, they blame everyone else. "My son couldn't be out. The umpire made a mistake." It starts that small. "Johnny scored on that play and I'll teach that ref something after the game." It escalates that quickly. "Out! You rotten, son-of-a-bitch, I'll kill you for calling out my son!" It explodes and someone gets hurt. The situation degrades, descending into the depths, led there by the supposed adults. The kids, reacting to these adults, follow into the depths.

While the kids are not nearly as often to start this stuff as the adults, they, too, have become more aggressive. What used to be occasional fights have become more than occasional. To this, you only have to look again to the role models the children admire: the professional athlete. Baseball players now quickly charge the mound and attack the pitcher on an inside pitch. Football players routinely flaunt a defeated opponent, so much so that the National Football League has had to implement rules to penalize this action. The lack of sportsmanship in professional athletics is as astounding as it is appalling and, quite frankly, sets the wrong example for impressionable kids looking to emulate their heroes.

I have no answers and offer none, since I cannot possibly hope to convince the ones that are the cause to stop. The first rule of fixing a problem is to recognize the problem. These adults will not be able to recognize the problem. Their ever-expanding ego will get in the way.

It remains ridiculous that an event, which could be so beneficial to the child, is destroyed by the adults who initiated it. It takes amazing conceit to allow this. But, fear not. Conceit is something that these "adults" seem to have in abundance.

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