(on edit from helen) Clearly both Steve and I felt strongly enough about Hyman's blog entry to post a link to it.

His words did send off some echoing bells about the relationship between coaches and officials and the relationship between high school coaches and parents from Rick Wolff at the Center for Sports Parenting. Wolff identifies three distinct types of parents:

The Discreet Parent, who meets several times with the coach during the season to “check up” on their child’s progress; the Befriender, who hopes the friendship can be parlayed into more playing time for their child; and the Loudmouth, who screams and yells from the stands at both the child and the coach.

While some cross the line, Wolff understands the parents’ intensity. “If you’re a parent,” he explains, “you’ve been chauffeuring your kids around to basketball games from the time they were 5 or 6 years old, you’ve been there for tryouts and travel teams and AAU teams. By the time the child is in eighth or ninth grade, you’ve invested quite a bit of your time, emotion and, of course, your finances in making sure your kid is going to be a star player. Now you’re handing your kid over to a coach who may not see your kid s the same kind of star you [do].”

“Coaches biggest complaints, almost universally, are dealing with parents.

Since the reality is that only about one percent of high school girls’ basketball players get scholarships, a coach needs to mange the parent’s expectations. Preseason meetings between coaches and parents laying out the coach’s ground rules and philosophy are essential. “Those meetings were a nice gesture or convenience 15 or 20 years ago,” says Wolff. “Now you must have that meeting.”