It's Just Not Sport

I feel like most of my posts lately have to do with football....does that give you any indication of where my life is atm?!

Today I took the 11 year old to footy because Dear Husband was working.

Never, in my life, did I imagine that I would witness one of the worst displays of behaviour from a coach that I've ever seen!

The other team's coach just stunned me. Throughout the game, he yelled, screamed, bagged the umpire (who was only a teenage kid!) and ended up arguing at the top of his voice with a field marshall. At 3/4 time he yelled at his team - who were losing at the time- that they obviously didn't want to play football and that he was walking away to let them sort it out for themselves. At one stage after he argued with the field marshall, the lines umpire who was from their team turned to him and told him to concentrate on the game.

Now, I'm sure that in any other situation, this sort of behaviour would have immediate retribution. Could you imagine sending your child to school to a teacher who spoke like that? No! In fact, any other profession who spoke to children like that would be under threat of suspension or dismissal. So because coaching is a volunteer job....does that make it ok? No way!

To balance this, at the other end of the field was our team's coach. The only time I heard him raise his voice across the grounds was to give directions or a positive ("Good one, X!'...'Grab the ball, Y!').

And any position of authority, that deals with vulnerable pre-teen boys, in my opinion should be modelling good behaviour and self-control. A football coach is one person that these kids often look up to. What message does that send them? That it's ok to yell, argue and be aggressive? To question authority and the rules that are in place for the safety of others?

Yes, it's a sad, sad day for football indeed when that sort of behaviour is displayed on any sporting field!