My school is trying to start a basketball program.
Two dads came in and made their pitch for a team for the boys fifth- and sixth-grade program: jerseys, referees, fundraisers, everything. Then we had a different meeting for the girls team. A different father wanted to lead that program as his daughter is a sixth-grader, and we also have a staff member who played Division I basketball in college.
From the school’s standpoint, this is great. Family engagement and community involvement is a wonderful thing.
What’s interesting are the drivers who compel each party to join in.
The school is about the kids having fun and representing the school for a few weeks or months. We are thrilled that someone wants to do it for the money we can pay (beans), considering that we are limited in what we can provide — a gym, but no bus.
The former hoop star is all about commitment, learning to be a team, really getting in there and trying your best for your own gain and for your team and your school. I was a little cowed by her fervor; it was like talking to a Nike commercial. Maybe that was what made her great, her focus and her vision from a young age.
The dads are all about making sure their sons learn the game in what they consider to be the right way. The boys had substandard coaching in the past and this, in their minds, is the plan to remedy that fiasco.
Varying agendas on the parts of coaches who are essentially volunteers are why we have a handbook containing and explaining every single possible circumstance one could imagine beforehand, to avoid conflict. Parents and players sign a paper indicating that they have read it, understand it and will abide by it. This may or may not be the case, but if they sign it and something happens, we hold them to it.
Will this mean that there won’t be animated, loud counter-coaching coming from the bleachers? Goodness, no.
Picture this: Uncle Richie played for the school back in the day. He knows basketball. “What you need is man-to-man defense; none of this zone business,” he says. He will tell it like it is, by god.
Picture this, too: Mickie’s dad is also a former player and coach, and he just wants the ref to know that he “missed a call over this way and may want to get your eyes checked, and also to stop favoring the other team, you blinkety-blinkety son of a blank.”
We can’t afford policing on the varsity level, which is where I come in. I’m there to be the muscle. If you knew me personally, you would drop the paper and slide to the floor right now in hysterics at the notion that I am going to get anybody’s uncle or dad to lay off the ref or the coach in the name of sportsmanship.
By day, I am the assistant principal in a good-sized school, and I am busy all day, every day. I have lots of conversations with people who are animated and loud. Some of them are adults, but most are children.
I am going to try to leverage some of the tools I use in the office to help me patrol the stands. Here are four:
Smile; you’re on candid camera: Kids are impressed when I tell them I have a video camera in every spot in the school. It may be helpful for me to inform the uncles and dads of the world that I really don’t want to have to go back to the tape to see if they were doing what I thought they were doing with their hand, specifically one of their fingers. That will stop them in their tracks, especially if I also inform them that we are a school that uses our words when we are upset.
The sincere sorry: I also get a lot of traction out of the apology asking forgiveness. I bet if a raging fan were to stay behind to apologize to the official and to further ask for his or her forgiveness, that would go a long way toward making that ref’s day.
Let me get that: Sometimes, the consequence for the students involves doing something to make it up to the injured party. We restore the community and make things right. Home fans could carry the gym bags and ball bags of the visitors on the way out as a sign of remorse for poor sportsmanship.
Take a break: We have a special room for kids who are having a hard time, a cool-down space. I could open that and invite irate fans to get in and chill until they are ready to cheer appropriately.
Though I do believe in these methods wholeheartedly in a school setting with kids, I am joking when it comes to sports, of course. I find that just talking with people respectfully can go a long way to harmonious conclusions.
It will be a challenge, however. This is an area with a history of basketball sportsmanship so poor that we are forbidden to ever play a certain rival because both schools’ fans were obnoxious, violent, profane and just plain mean.
So as long as I don’t get my butt kicked after any of these athletic contests, I will write to let you know how the season went.
Deb Beaupre writes periodically on sports from the parental point-of-view despite the fact that she once referred to uniforms as costumes. She lives in Meriden.