High School Athletic Directors' Concerns

A few weeks back, the Star Ledger published an extensive interview with many of the state's ADs. Our own Sean Dowling , who does a fantastic job, was quoted numerous times in the story. 

Other than trying to make ends meet with the budgetary constraints that plague so many schools, the biggest problem that Sean mentioned was dealing with parents.  As the father of three former high school varsity athletes, this is an all too familiar and sad problem, and one that will probably never go away, but does need to be addressed.

If you have a son or daughter that is good enough to be able to play a varsity sport, the experience is light years different from when you (the parent) coached him or her in Little League.  Varsity coaches have one job and that is to win as many games as possible. 

Because of this mandate, most coaches are going to play the best players, the ones that give the team the best chance to win.  If this doesn't happen to include your own "superstar," that's too bad. It's called competition, and it's the way of the world.  

This is what is going to stare these kids in the face when they start looking for a job some day. The idea that someone who runs the entire athletic department at school has to field emails, phone calls and have meetings with parents complaining about how coaches are using their children is ridiculous. What are you going to do when your child doesn't get that promotion at work, go talk to his/her boss?  Get a life!

Second, people who go to high school games and yell at officials and even worse, at other players, are an even bigger problem.  I was personally at two different high school basketball games this season when the games had to be stopped and parents ejected from the gym because of excessive yelling at officials.

People who exhibit this kind of behavior are usually those who were never good enough to play themselves and are living their sports fantasies through their kids. Again, an AD shouldn't have to police the crowd with people watching 15-18 years old kids playing a sport that they love.

High school sports are great. The athletes are tremendous, the competition wonderful and the price is right. Parents who want to try to ruin this picture should take some advice from Archie Bunker when he would say to Edith..."stifle yourself."