When Adam Yahn scouted players for an elite junior hockey team, he wouldn’t wear his team's logo to games. That way, parents in the stands wouldn’t know he was the general manager of Ontario's Cobourg Cougars.
Yahn heard the ones yelling in coaches' and players' ears, and he always found out who they were. Their kids were the first ones he wrote off.
“I didn’t care how good you were,” Yahn told USA TODAY Sports. “How your parents were behaving, a lot of the time, dictated whether I wanted you on my team.
"I’d much rather a parent that lets their child be involved in their decisions and decide what they’re doing with their future, rather than a parent that’s trying to live vicariously through them.”
Parent misbehavior plays out all over youth sports. They arrive with camping chairs and a heightened sense of their own sports knowledge. They ride the referees, the coaches and often their own children. And they don’t discriminate when it comes to sport — riding the glass, crowd or court.
But is there a sport where they are at their absolute worst?
Through dozens of discussions with parents, coaches, sports officials and administrators, and through my own experiences, I have created a ranking of "worst" parents by youth sport. Of course, there are lots of good fans out there who cheer and otherwise keep quiet. But I have found lots of traction with the negativity and mania around six particular sports.
Here are the worst offenders:
Bigger players, perhaps more than in any sport, tend to dominate football at younger ages. They are hard to tackle and can easily knock over others. One dad in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, said he's seen parents become convinced these kids are their meal tickets and point fingers at the coach if the kid struggles.
Football parents can be right on the sideline, all over that coach. It’s up to leagues to keep them away. Setting expectations is crucial in sports where there is no physical barrier (backstop, glass) to the action.
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But by the time football players reach a certain age, parents are often seated in bleachers farther away, so they can’t disrupt as much. They can’t be heard as easily if an official makes a call at midfield. That separation keeps them, and parents of other field sports, from finishing at the top of our list.
Lacrosse parents can be right on the sideline, too, encroaching on players, coaches and referees.
“They’ll say, ‘That’s a ward (a type of technical foul), that’s a push-off,” said Jack Lally, a longtime assignor and referee for youth lacrosse in New Jersey. “Like, no it’s not. A lot of parents think they understand the game and they really don’t. And I see them getting in the way, sometimes getting in the way of kids as well.”
There tends to be a sense of entitlement with lacrosse parents, who might spend thousands of dollars per year on equipment and fees for club teams. One youth lacrosse coach in greater Boston said in his experience families with the most money feel they have the most license to open their mouths.
He coached his two daughters in a gateway city where there isn’t a lot of money. He finds those blue-collar lacrosse parents more appreciative of him than club parents. Like many lacrosse parents, those in his town also are a bit ignorant about the sport, so they generally keep quiet.
Brandon Boos, a youth and high school boys lacrosse coach for more than a decade, has few issues with his team parents for a similar reason.
“Unlike baseball or football, most of the parents never played the sport. They lacked the confidence to have many strong opinions about what was happening,” said Boos, who lives in Worthington, Ohio. “But, they also knew I wouldn't have put up with it. We talked sportsmanship with players and parents alike. 'This is what we do on this team, and this is how we do it.’ ”
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Every parent seems to know something about baseball because they probably played it at some basic level or have been to a major league game. In many ways, it's still America's favorite pastime.
Such familiarity makes criticism of umpires and coaches more natural. Bleachers are right behind home plate and constant catcalls can ring out toward an umpire.
This proximity, however, also allows an umpire immediate access to the fans. I have seen baseball parents (and coaches) intimidate umpires, but those umps are often teenagers unsure of their own ability. A self-assured umpire can take control of a game by confronting an offending fan, which often ends the chatter, and ejecting them if necessary.
Fans at baseball games can be more spread out, too, with some sitting in the bleachers around home plate but others in their fold-up chairs down the lines or even behind the outfield fences. Thus, the barrage of commentary isn’t loudly concentrated in one area.
Baseball parents can still represent the worst in us, though. I have seen a group of Little League parents cheer noisily for their players, who were already intimidating some of my players by their sheer size. These same parents also yelled loudly against any calls that went against their kids.
A lot of parents have played soccer, too. However, some of them may not know the rules as well as they know, say, baseball. In either case, they lay into refs at a level that has attracted national attention.
“We have some work to do,” said Skye Eddy, founder of the Soccer Parenting Association, which she described as a movement of level-headed parents, coaches and club leaders uniting to improve the environment around youth soccer. “There is an unhealthy focus on winning instead of competing, and a misalignment between values and behaviors is overwhelming us.”
Soccer parents can also hang around the sidelines, and the pressure they place on their kids can cut so deeply some simply quit playing. Zack Kampf, who runs the Intelligent Footballers Academy in suburban Phoenix, has seen it happen.
He's watched soccer organizations, and the parents who sign their kids up for them, so obsessed with winning that it affects their kids’ play. And then parents wonder why the club doesn’t have a more attractive style of play.
“Well, you guys can’t because you have a reputation. You’re supposed to be the best. And so your kids are too afraid to fail. They tried to be brave in a certain situation and then they lost the ball and they got scored on,” said Kampf, who also coached soccer at the high school and collegiate levels. “Now, suddenly, it’s their fault this team that’s supposed to be the best lost the game. So now, your kids are going to play in a way that is risk-averse, which can have a huge consequence later on down the road.”
Which soccer club you play for is a status symbol for kids, and maybe even more so for their parents. Some clubs, however, have gotten creative with overbearing parents. One parent in Wisconsin told me that once criticism reached a coach’s wife, the head coach started videoing the sidelines. Suddenly, things got very quiet.
Yahn, who served as Cobourg Cougars' GM from 2017 to 2020, sees two types of hockey parents: Ones who get very engaged in the game, yelling at the refs and barking commands at players (“Shoot the puck, Johnny!”); and ones who quietly sit and watch.
“I tend to find there’s a healthy balance, but sometimes the scales tip over to the erratic parents,” Yahn said.
Their noise echoes in small rinks where fans can be crammed together. One hockey coach and official (and sports parent) told me seating can make the distraction of hockey parents worse than other sports. In some rinks, both teams’ fans may be sitting next to each other. In outdoor sports, by contrast, fans are likely to be split up by sides.
Hockey and its rugged and violent nature also seems to bring out the primal natures of some parents. They have been known to come to blows with one another.
Ice hockey is the most expensive youth sport for a child to participate in, according to 2019 data from the Aspen Institute of Play and the Utah State University’s Families in Sports Lab. (Equestrian sports were not included in the study). Parents spend thousands of dollars per year between fees, equipment and extra training. And there's heavy buy-in from parents to make their kid “the one.”
“It’s their dream, as opposed to their player’s dream, which causes so many other challenges, too, right?” Yahn said.
If you’re a true basketball parent, you know to bring your camping chair. You take it to a game and sit where you want, any spot you can find around the court. You’re often sit right near the baseline or sidelines.
Games are often held in a field house hosting a half-dozen games at once. But whether you’re in this setting or a small gym with a single court, noise is all around you. Noise is just a part of basketball, as are so many other factors that makes the environment around the sport an enabler for unruly parents.
“Everyone is packed into a fieldhouse that typically has no bleachers so parents are sitting in camping chairs a few feet from the court,” says Brian Curran, a basketball parent from Ardmore Pennsylvania. “The game moves very fast, and it’s indoors so the noise is louder.
“Also, coaches yelling is an inherent part of basketball; it’s basically expected. Parents see this and do it too. It’s awful.”
There is also a level of intensity in basketball that naturally inflames parents. Top youth basketball teams have fewer spots than those for other sports. The cutthroat nature of the sport makes parents, in my opinion, especially cold and cruel.
The final roster spots often go to the kids who are the toughest: the ones willing to bang for a rebound with a taller kid and dive on the floor for a loose ball. Parents act the same way beside the court. They scream for blood, even with an enormous lead. They scream over the coaches, often when players are in mid-action. There is no glass separating them, and kids often hear every word.
My wife and I have left basketball games with headaches from the cacophony of it all. I have also seen parents get up and walk away from others on their own team.
If you’re one of these offending parents, take a step back and walk away. Sit by yourself. It’s the way, I’ve found, parents of elite athletes do it. Washington Capitals center Nic Dowd was raised in Huntsville, Alabama, by British parents who put no pressure on him to advance within the sport as they carted him through the Southeast for games each weekend. They sat quietly at his hockey games. And they cheered.
Their actions, and their presence, showed their encouragement and affection much more than their words.
“What I’m learning about having a kid is that inevitably they’re gonna make their own decision when they need to, but it’s our responsibility to provide them with the best atmosphere and environment for them to make those decisions,” Dowd, who has two young children with his wife, Paige, told USA TODAY Sports last spring. "We try and let Louie know we love him every single day and how big a piece of our life he is.”
It's a way you can approach youth sports, too.
Asia Mape, who founded website ilovetowatchyouplay.com, recently came up with 17bways she’s going to be a better sports parent in 2024. I recommend you read them, and focus on No. 17:
“I will tell them I love to watch them play consistently instead of what they need to do better,” she writes.
Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons’ baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now loving life as sports parents for a high schooler and middle schooler. For his past columns, click here.
Got a question for Coach Steve you want answered in a future column? Email him at [email protected].
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