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By: David Emeott
The parents' role is simple: encouraging their athlete and the team, being positive, and remaining present. The child needs their parents the most when things don't go as planned. When athletes fail, they experience a lonely moment, one where they need their parents' support more than ever. Their job is to be there for them-not to fix everything, but to let them process the emotions of falling short. As a parent, I have attended countless competitions, traveling long distances to watch my children and their teammates compete in both high school and college. My mindset has remained the same, with two things particularly emphasized:
When my kids win, they are surrounded by friends and teammates celebrating. But when they lose? That's when the car ride home feels the longest. That's when I am needed most. It is not a parent's role to do the following three things:
There are a time and place for discussing concerns with a coach, and it is never from the stands in the third quarter. I have never met a player who enjoys hearing their parents yelling from the stands. I have often wondered what drives this behavior when I witness it. Is it a learned response? Maybe one time, they yelled "Shoot!" and their kid took a shot and made a basket, unfortunately reinforcing the belief that their input was necessary. From a coach's perspective, I have seen how this unfolds. Almost every time, the athlete is embarrassed. Too often, the parents' vocal comments from the stands contradict what the coach is saying. And even when a parent's advice is technically correct, the athlete is left in an impossible situation, with two conflicting options:
It's a lose-lose situation. Coaching an athlete is a bit like co-parenting, because it takes a village more than just two biological parents to raise a well-adjusted, successful child. When two voices are in direct conflict, the young athlete is caught in the middle, and that rarely ends well. As competitors themselves, coaches do everything they can to improve their chances of winning. I have never seen a situation where an out-of-control, disruptive parent made an athlete play better. I have never seen a coach put a kid in the game or offer a scholarship because a parent pushed them into it by yelling from the stands. I have never seen a parent criticizing another athlete Most parents are passionate, and that's a good thing. But passion without purpose or control is a problem. Every parent has moments of feeling like their child should play more, that the coach made a bad decision, or that the refs blew a call. I have felt those things too. But I have also realized the following three things:
The reality is that most kids aren't on the verge of a Division I scholarship, and the coach is probably less responsible for their future than you think. In the same vein, it never helps to yell at an official. Coaches can sometimes work an official to get a call, but this is never helped by a parent's reaction. And criticizing another athlete? It is completely out of line for a parent to publicly berate someone else's child, and it almost always leads to unnecessary conflict in the stands. A few years ago, college coaches started asking one question before recruiting an athlete: "How are the parents?" Without naming names, I've seen firsthand how much this matters. Early in the transfer portal era of college sports, I would casually mention to a college coach that a kid might benefit from "getting away from home” because their parents were overbearing and never satisfied. I didn't realize at the time how much weight those words carried: Coaches would immediately cool on that athlete, and the recruitment process would stop. College coaches have had to make huge adjustments in the way they recruit. Club and AAU coaches have known this for years: You are recruiting the parents as much as you are recruiting the kid. If a player's parents are difficult, the chances of them transferring after a year or two are significantly higher. At the college level, coaches invest time and effort into freshmen and sophomores with the expectation of a payoff in their junior and senior years. If they believe an athlete's parents will constantly look for something "better," they are far less likely to offer a scholarship. With the transfer portal and "name, image, and likeness" deals changing college sports, coaches are more concerned than ever about what parents will do when their kid isn't playing or is benched. One college coach told me that when they scout players, they also watch the stands to identify the parents. If they can't figure out who the parents are by the end of the game, that's a good thing-it means they aren't a distraction. From time to time, coaches will need to step in and play the role of a parent. But I have yet to meet a parent who needed to take on the role of a coach in the third quarter.
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Parents: Know Your Role
