- What are some of the worse behaviors
you've seen on the field?
- You know, I've seen a referee,
by the way I get anywhere from 200 to 1400 videos a week
- What?
- From not just around the country
but from around the world.
It's an epidemic, it's a culture in crisis,
it's exactly what you said that it was.
I've got a video of a woman that's
running on to the soccer pitch that slaps the referee.
I have a state school administrator
out of West Memphis, Arkansas,
who allegedly spit at an NFL referee.
I have a 21 year old kid who is told
by a 43 year old adult in Oregon,
I'm going to kill you after the game.
- Oh my god. (crowd sighing)
- This is a cancerous epidemic and it has to stop.
- Wow. I mean I'm stunned by the number of videos
that you're getting every week.
Why are parents so psycho about kids sports?
- (chuckling) (crowd laughing)
Psycho is the nice word.
I think it boils down to entitlement.
I think we live in a society to where
if we get told no or someone spanks your hand
and said no-no, we get mad, we get angry,
someone's gonna take our joy away.
We want to raise the trophy at the end of the week
and say, by gosh we are champions.
Doesn't matter. The kids don't care. Kids don't care.
(applause)
- Wow. Well here's something that I've wondered
because as a parent with three kids,
Chris and I have noticed this whole rise in club sports
and the amount of money that people are throwing down
and we got sucked into it with lacrosse
(chuckling)
with our oldest one, is there you think,
a connection between the uptick in money
that parents are spending and the uptick in
this behavior that you're seeing?
- I do and let me preface this by saying,
just because you spend more money for your kid
to play sports, that is not a permit
for you to be an (bleep).
- Whoa. There's a word. (applause)
- And let me tell you why I say that,
I ref quite a few, I ref games all over the country
and the higher and the more affluent the family
the bigger,
- Really?
- Yeah. And it doesn't give you a permit to be like that.
So yeah, I think there is a major uptick,
I think they demand perfection.
I think their ego is fed by money,
I think their money feeds their mouth
and I think it turns into verbal vomit
and it creates a toxic environment for sports.
No development, no fun, win at all cost
and it's an epidemic, a cancerous epidemic.
(applause)
- When the parent also becomes the coach
how does that also impact the dynamic
because you know look, I think a lot of youth sports
are run based on volunteers,
there's a lot of amazing coaches out there,
a lot of us parents, you know we want to be involved
with our kids but how can that impact this?
- Let me say this, I was this person,
I coached my kids - [Mel] You were a psycho?
- I was a psycho. (laughing)
And let me tell ya, I saw the light
when my own daughter and son at the end of the game,
I'm going hey, we need to do this,
you didn't cover the back door on
the second half on this play and you got to play harder
and their like, dad we don't want to hear it.
Then they told me later, we don't even want
to play anymore and so for me that was like
a reflection moment of, what, why am I doing this?
Why am I acting, because they are
an extension of me and I want to be victorious
and I want to be the champion and I want
to win at all cost and so I finally
figured out to stop and to back up.
Got in to referring, I changed
my whole dynamics as a parent and guess what?
My kids are excelling in a major way
and all they truly want to do,
all they truly want to hear
is that they want you to hug 'em, tell 'em you love 'em,
tell 'em you enjoyed watching them play and move on.
(applause)
- [Mel] Yeah and let somebody else,
well case and point.
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