got into a fight during a game, and while it's funny 18 years later it caused quite a rift when it happened. Another father and I had to step in and separate them. 14 year old girls shouldn't be hearing their fathers say C#$% Sucker or Mother F%$#@# come out of their fathers mouths.

Good idea

we finished runner up at the USA Gold Cup in Minnesota this past summer. We have been fortunate to have a club and a team full of genuinely good kids who love to play together but the craziness is very real and its all the adults.

We played the #1 team from Kansas in the final whose parents cheered against our girls and trash talked almost the entire game from the beginning whistle. For 12 year olds...let that sink in. My daughter was so confused by it as a parent looked at her and said "Hey #7...you got nothin. You can't hang with our girls." Big surprise...their girls yapped the whole game. These are the values being taught. It makes one shake the head.

I have heard some horror stories, though. Some very entitled parents out there. And competitive.

I once had to ref a match between two u13 girls sides in a tournament final. Parents were getting into it with each other. We had to stop play a couple times to warn the coaches about the behavior. They were even getting nasty with the girls playing. It was bizarre. All over a $2 plastic trophy.

The two teams were A and B teams from the same club. That blew my mind.

It was the first GRIT tournament a couple years ago.

matches are A vs B matches or the local expensive club versus the local bargain club.

In my locale, there's nothing worse than playing against the B team of the expensive club. The sidelines are populated with parents who think Susie or Billie was robbed of being on the A team and they are merely putting in time waiting for justice to be served.

I can imagine all of the parents of kids on the select team wanting their kids to get one over on the elite team when it is the same club!

I've long believed that the only solution to parental problems on the sidelines is a scorched earth policy. Parent gets out of line, team forfeits and kid of parent misses a game. There's not a single gunner parent who would make Bobby or Susie miss a future game. No more jawing. No more yelling at refs. All the nonsense would stop. Sadly, some of the biggest mouths have lots of power at the clubs, so the clubs protect them.

What's amazing to me is the way "new" parents aren't enthusiastically welcomed or the hurt feelings about who got brought up to A and who got sent down to B. I honestly think our club has the right idea. They train three days a week at both the elite and select level and the second day of any weeks training is a combined practice so the B team girls mix with and compete against the A team girls. In theory, the transition up and down should be easier. In reality, it is still difficult. We had a situation that made some elite parents mad last season and they were critical of the coach. The B team parents, being sycophants who want their daughter on the A team, supported the coach. Only two B team girls got moved up and no A team girls were moved down. Now, the B team parents don't love the coach. I guess they didn't get what they had hoped out of politically supporting the coach!