Taking in a Game

I took Patrick to his Junior Jazz game yesterday, and decided to take the video camera. I wish that I had taken shots of him during warm-ups so you could see his shot form. I didn’t know that during the game he would never touch the ball.



You might have noticed during the video that I was sitting next to Josh’s dad. Who is Josh? Some kids from the other team. Fortunately Josh is on another team, so I won’t have to listen to him each week. Junior Jazz is using the motto “Coaches coach, Players play, referees ref and parents cheer.” Apparently Josh’s dad got the ‘coaches coach’ and ‘parents cheer’ part mixed up. Josh’s dad is ‘that guy’. You know the guy? There’s one at every youth sporting event. He criticizes the refs for allowing 6 year olds to travel and double dribble. He yells at his kid for taking bad shots. He makes fun of kids when they do something wrong. He pulls the 15 year old volunteer ref aside during time outs to ‘give him some pointers’. He gets upset with the coach if his kid doesn’t start and close the game. He strolls out onto the court between quarters with his other son to give the other son some pointers on proper form and makes a show of it in front of all the other parents. You know the guy. He probably also brags to his kids about how he played defensive end for a major university, while forgetting to tell them that he never started, and never made a play on the field. He kind of reminds me of Rome’s ’softball guy’. As I make my way through the world of my kids’ sporting and dance events, that guy is going to be my biggest challenge. He’s an a-hole. And he teaches his kids to be a-holes.