Taking Responsibility

Tonight was supposed to be about a certain professional athlete brandishing a gun in a locker room, instead its going to be about something that is possibly just as troubling and could explain why this type of behavior seems to be so common place.

While watching a local high school girl's basketball game a young lady was called for a foul, fair enough, they happen every game no big deal. Until she decides to start yelling at the ref, she is then given the technical. Now according to team rules that denotes the player being benched the remainder of the game. Instead of her taking the bench, she continues to get into a shouting match with the ref for which she is given her second technical and subsequently ejected from the game and no longer permitted near the court. All of this occurred within a five second span in the second quarter. The player goes into the locker room only to emerge during halftime when the rest of the team comes out.

The girls behavior is completely inexcusable and that is evident to every adult in the arena, with the exception of said player's mother. The mother does not seem to realize that her sixteen year old daughter disrespected her team, teammates, school, coach, athletic faculty, and the referees. Instead she blames the coach for being too hard on her child. Twice in the season a player has gotten a technical foul and both times those players sat on the bench the remainder of the game with no issue, but for some reason this mother and this parent seem to think they should be the exception.

I'm not saying this situation is directly related to what recently happened in Washington, but if parents do not hold themselves and their children responsible for these types of actions, then when will they learn what is wrong and what is right? When a player joins a team, there are a certain set of rules they need to follow, if they don't they have to face the consequences. If every parent treated their child like this coach, these referees, and this team treated this player maybe there would not be the issue of athletes attempting to live by a different set of rules. It should be up to the parent to teach this and not high school coaches.