You’re blind ref! Â What do you mean she’s out? Traveling! Â Â Youth sports officials have a tough job. Â They must know every rule of the sport they are officiating, they must keep up with every play during a game, and they must deal with PARENTS.
It’s the sad truth. Â Many parents of tweens take away from the fun of team sports. Â Not only do they harass the officials, they try to coach from the sidelines. Â Recently, I interviewed a youth sports official, one with 30 years experience, on the subject of parents of tweens. Â Here are three things he would like them to understand.
1. Â Please don’t coach from the sidelines.
All teams have a designated coach.  Even if a parent disagrees with the coach’s decisions, she should not scream her own plays from the sidelines.  Imagine this: the coach tells a tween to complete a specific play; however, as soon as the action starts, he hears his father screaming for him to do something else.  This would be confusing to say the least.
The official I interviewed stated that it is fine to coach your child before or after the game. Coaching during the game just sets a tween up for failure.
2. Â Please realize that your child is not a professional athlete.
One of the hardest things for a parent to admit – your tween is not an NBA (NFL or any other league) star. Â He might some day be on a professional team, but right now, he is not. According to the official I talked to, he has seen too many parents take all the fun out of the game by placing too much pressure on their child. While being supportive is a great thing, pretending that the game is on an advanced level can be detrimental to a child’s love of sport.
In addition, if one truly does the math, only a very small minority of children end up in professional sports. Instead of insisting your child is a phenom vocally at games, work with the child on skill building. Â Only then will your child even have a chance of making it big.
3. Â Please understand that officials are people too.
As I alluded to in the opening paragraph, youth sports officials have a tough job. Â On top of the stress of taking tests to verify they know all the rules and dealing with angry fans, they don’t get paid much money to officiate games. Â In essence, these men and women officiate because they LOVE sports, and they want young people to grow up LOVING sports as well.
When a parent becomes belligerent with an official due to a missed call or for some other issue, he or she sends the wrong message to the child. Â Mistakes happen. Â Officials make mistakes. Realize that and move on.
Concluding Thoughts
Being a youth sports official can be difficult at times; however, those that do it have a deep passion for sports.  After all, sports provide a means of exercise, they can be fun, and they teach life lessons.