Parent meeting

[MisterV]

Hello to all,

I am the girls BB coordinator at a medium sized middle school. The quality of play in our league is pretty good, but not as good as our parents think it is. Over the past few years I have noticed a disturbing trend. I know that this is nothing new to you guys, but it really is starting to irritate me as a coach. The problem is this...the parents of my players are fairly knowledgeable about the game, some are quite knoledgeable about the finer points of the rules.

However, I get tired of hearing parents in the stands yelling things that are flat out wrong from the stands at the officials. I have officiated soccer and softball for quite some time, so I am sensitive to the abuse that misinformed parents can heap on officials. I want to do everything I can to eliminate that from my program.

I have seen threads similar to this in the past, so I'm sorry if this is a repeat for some. But what I am looking for are some calls and situations that you officials find that parents usually don't understand, or, they think they understand, but really have it screwed up. Perhaps if I can shed a little light on some of these misunderstood rules and situations in my pre-season parent meeting, I can save the officials some abuse, and save me some embarrassment.

I am not naive enough to think that this will solve all my parent-yelling problems. I do have a good group of well-meanin, supportive parents. They just don't always know what they are talking about. Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.