IRATE MOTHERS
This past weekend I thought I would get real brave and venture out into the world of GRASSROOTS TENNIS--and what a weekend! I had a great time seeing some fantastic young tennis players but I also understand more fully why we have a lot of new officials quit officiating.
PARENTS, PARENTS, PARENTS is the key reason--and its all over the country. I had the "privilege" of officiating the 12 and under division and had quite a time. Sometimes in the middle of an "encounter" you nearly want to stop and laugh when you consider its still just a tennis match and the whole world doesn't revolve around this 12 year old and his Mother.
The first great experience was a Mother that was convinced that the other Mother shouldn't clap when her daughter won a point on a good shot. From two courts away, I could hear Mother #1 yelling at Mother #2 and telling her and her friends to stop "cheering." I finally had to go and ask her to quit arguing and yelling at the Mother #2 since she was disrupting play on the four courts around her. She quickly informed me that parents were not permitted to clap and she would continue to do whatever she desired.
I quickly (and lovingly) shared with her that parents could clap when their children win a point and that she definitely could not continue to do whatever she wanted to do. Her daughter soon lost and she grabbed up her heavy-duty lawn chair and stormed past me--informing me that she would be filing a complaint against me, the tournament, and God Himself for permitting these awful things to happen to her daughter.
As she left, I said, "My name is Myron Krueger, so please get it right on the complaint."
Incident #2 was even more exciting that the irate Mother! Seems that two 12 year old boys were playing and after the match Father #1, who was French, complained loudly that his son had been cheated by his opponent and that the other boy could not see at all. Leaping to her son's defense, Mother #1, who was Asian, quickly confronted Father #1, and then the racial slurs begin to fall like rain.Mother #1 was accusing the French of most everything evil in the universe and Father #1 was mocking her by trying to talk Chinese.
Finally, I had to ask both parents to quit yelling at each other and arguing in the front of the kids. It was priceless to see the looks they both gave me... At least they quit and probably resumed their national origin argument in the parking lot!
And we wonder why some new officials quit so soon...
7 comments:
Looks like you have a lot of writing to do for documenting the incidents to the Texas Section. Grievance Committee here we come...
Lol! Really, the lone man boasting how good he and all Texas Officials are, handled both situations like a rookie.
Great, thanks for once again confirming your ignorance and myopathy.
And o wise anonymous one who won't even sign your name, how would you have handled it? I doubt seriously if you have ever even done a junior tournament.
Sounds to me like it was handled correctly.
I didn't know Myron contributed to the blog. ;-)
Myron always contributes to the blog. Either in thought or deed.
I am a provisional official who has decided to give up my quest to officiate after being made subject to blatantly slanderous comments about me from one of my training supervisors. This supervisor had the audacity to condemn me over my perceived wrongdoings while attending a local college tennis match as a spectator and not in any officiating capacity. To add insult to injury, this supervisor was not even in attendance at the match and only heard of it from another official who was officiating the match. My attempts to add clarity to the false accusations by correctly stating what transpired at the match were rebuffed totally. Unfortunately, the whole fiasco came down to who believes whom and the first year official apparently had no credibility in the world of senior officials. My "crime" was asking the official for some clarity in my mind on when to start the clock on the timer after each point served. Apparently, this particular official thought I was being critical of his technique, when in fact I was only wanting some clarity since I was assigned to "shadow" an event the next day at a Junior event. To say I am frustrated is an understatement, since it appears that I would get very little work in my area with the type of supervisors I have encountered to date.
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