Dustin Conley

Story on the latest sign of youth sports culture: Our 10U baseball team played a game yesterday. Opposing parents chirping at our 3rd base coach. Opposing parents yelling at umpires after calls that don’t go their way, adding “it’s us vs the umps!” Opposing player gets plunked with a baseball in the back while stealing second, is on the ground in obvious pain, and his own coaches/parents are screaming at him to get up and toughen up. Nobody went out to check on him. Opposing tough-guy coaches arguing calls non-stop. Screaming at their own players for not listening to instruction. After the game (a loss for them), those coaches spent 10 minutes arguing with the umpires & tournament organizer while their own players waited patiently in the outfield for the postgame meeting. That meeting included forcing them to run a lap after a long day of baseball (they’d played a doubleheader). As our team/families drove away from the fields, their team was still in the dugout, as the head coach laid into them for their performance. This is 10U travel baseball. This is youth sports. You wonder why kids burn out from the game or turn out to be bad adults. The cycle feeds itself. The youth sports culture needs good people to stand in the gap, and stand up for the kids. Each weekend is a wake-up call to just how bad it has gotten, and it’s only getting worse.