You suck, you can't play with us.

Tuesday was another typical day for me.  Well typical in that since my last blog post I have been working 13 hour days, including weekends.  How does that saying go?

I digress, as usual.  So Tuesday shortly after the mister takes Andy to crappyassfootball practice, I get a text about the coaches acting like idiots.  Here is the scenario:

The practice field that SMYFL uses belongs to a junior high school.  During regular school hours, which last Tuesday ran business as usual since it was the first day of school.  All campuses in this city are closed campuses, meaning all perimeter gates are locked, for the kids' safe keeping I suppose.  I don't see how a perimeter gate will keep the crazies out if all they need to do is hop over or climb under a fence.  Which brings me to what happened next.  

It seems that the custodial staff may have, with the hustle and bustle of the first day of school, forgotten to unlock the side gate entrance to the practice field.  Quite understandable as I see it, as the junior high school is being gracious enough to allow SMYFL access and use of their field.  Instead of doing the smart(right) thing, several of the coaches take it upon themselves to rip the chain-link fence up and out of the ground for the kids to climb under it.  Does that seem wrong to anyone other than the mister and one lone dude that was basically told to STFU when he told the coaches they should NOT be (in not so many words) doing 'that'?

1. Destroying Property
2. Trespassing
3. Unlawful Entry

According to SMYFL this is what they do:

"SMYFL focuses on teaching the fundamentals of football and cheerleading to Santa Maria youth while also teaching respect for self, others, and community. Our football season runs from August to November, while our cheerleading season runs from July to December."  

Gee, I didn't realize teaching kids how to 1, 2 and 3 listed above constituted respect in any form.  Being that I am new to this parenting bullshit, I must not be aware of the methods which children are being taught.  I obviously have it all wrong, right?

As with any other thing in life, playing a sport involves mountains of paper work.  One of those little pebbles that is in that mountain of paper work is the Coaches Ethics Pledge.  That pledge is signed by all coaches, guess what I saw on that pledge:  "S/he will set an example in personal conduct at all times."  Somehow I think several coaches broke their pledge.  "S/he will strive to make every football activity serve as a training ground for life,and as a foundation for maintaining good mental and physical health."  Excellent training!  Way to teach the kids how not to be patient, break rules and destroy property.

Needless to say, that behavior earned the Board of Directors a nasty-gram via email.  But that is just the tip of the iceberg, I haven't even moved on to the title point.  "Your kid sucks and you should remove him from football and get a refund."  Oh really?  All of the above crap happened around 5pm.  Fast-forward to the end of practice which is about 7pm.  I get another message from the mister about the football coach being a "shit-bag".  Apparently Coach Rice goes on to tell the mister that Andy just doesn't seem that into it.  And that he is missing his chin-strap and leg pads from his uniform.  Well the uniform was their job to provide and we were waiting on those items.  

He goes on to tell the mister that Andy is losing practice time hitting because he is missing those items, hinting that we need to purchase them.  We got the list of required items and had them purchased, we paid the league monies to provide pads and helmets.  How is this our fault?  He basically was urging the mister to pull Andy out of football which is AGAINST THEIR RULES: "S/he must never attempt to discourage, run-off, or cut weaker players."  This is Andy's first organized sport, of course he is not going to do as well as other players who have played before.  Not to mention that cow of a mother of his never encouraged anything that promoted physical fitness.

Okay, so yeah, maybe Andy did suck.  But I went 2 weeks straight to his practices while his dad was in Japan and he was improving.  He went to all the practices, on time and participated until the very end.  He didn't give up, whine, cry or walk off the field (which I totally expected).  I actually saw marked improvement in his running speeds and physical agility.  He was putting in the effort and the coach just saw him as a weak player and basically wanted him off the team.  By this point the mister was tired of the coaches shenanigans (not to mention a tad insulted cause his son is considered small because he is thin like him and not a McFatty that is 25 pounds over weight at age 11).

We went online and respectfully requested a refund in full because Coach Rice specifically was running Andy off the team for being a weaker player.  Our alternative was to have him come back after the Coach was reprimanded (so he could retaliate? no thanks), moved to another team or dropped to a lower division.  We were done watching the Coaches go against rules.  The president of the organization called and tried to talk me out of a full refund because of a contract I had signed.  I advised him that his coaches were in breach of what they had signed and that was why I was demanding a refund in full.  He was fairly adamant until I mentioned contacting my lawyer.  It wasn't really about the money, it was the principal of the matter.  Then the president tried to make excuses for Coach Rice's behavior.  No thanks, that's a grown-ass man, he doesn't need someone making excuses for him.  His behavior was unacceptable.

So maybe football doesn't suck.  Maybe it's just the meat-heads that coach and play the sport.  I don't know I don't like the sport any more or less than I did at the start of this very short football season.  I am glad that I don't have to give up my pottery studio time on Saturday's to watch children scramble about trying to play something that resembles football.  All of course, while there are guys yelling at them that sound like:

I think some of these washed up, ex-con, fat asses that failed in life are trying to relive Uncle Rico days through these kids and that's fucked up.  So for now, Andy will keep on running the fun runs with me and possibly take up golf with his grandpa.  He did mention interest in baseball, which doesn't start until spring and tennis.  I think tennis comes sooner than later and if he wants to try it, who knows maybe his thin light frame is better built for a tennis court than a football field.  We shall see.