Sporting Parents

I happen to be the parent of a child that is involved in sports.  At first I was coaching Cheerleading which I am not really sure you get to call a sport.  (Don't get me wrong, these girls put in a lot of long hours, sweat and tears into their practices and their job is not easy.)  Now I am coaching Volleyball which is most definitely a sport that involves fewer tears and way more fun.  With a team of 8 girls you would think that it would be relatively easy to coordinate the practices (same time and day every week) and the games (same day every week) with every one's schedules, but that seems to be way more of a challenge than anticipated.

Every week I get a call or an e-mail from a parent - what day and time are we practicing this week?  Same day and time as last week, and the week before and the week before and that I mentioned in my e-mail THIS MORNING....  I actually had a parent tell me they had three girls in sports and they couldn't keep up with which coach belonged to which girl.  Time to stop hitting that crack pipe Mom...

Then we have parents that don't show up with their kids, don't call, don't e-mail and don't return phone calls.   Dear Sir or Madam Ass Hat....we had to forfeit our game because we didn't have enough players.  Was Sally involved in a major accident?  No, she didn't feel like coming today?  I wish I could say "Off the team!", but I can't because then we would have to forfeit more games.  We have 8 players and need a minimum of 5 to play.  You would think that would be easy, but one of the 8 broke her arm the week before our first practice so she's out.  Of the 7 left we have had more than one game where we barely eeked by with our 5. 

As a parent, when you sign your kids up for these events, you are making a commitment of your time as well.  They should have to sign an oath.

I, parent of sporting child, do hereby promise that I will bring my child to all practices and games unless they have suffered a loss of limb or plague.  I will pick my child up from said practices and games in a timely manner so that my coach doesn't have to babysit my child for an additional 30 minutes.  In the event that I am tardy I agree to buy my coach a pony.