Expert Series: Travis T. Tygart on Sport Parenting

My wife and I both participate in sport, so I think the kids, we try to work out and ski and do fun things, throw a football and baseball and basketball around the house. So I think they all love sport for the most part and our daughter dances as well. So really getting them involved with activities that the family can participate in and have fun around. And also gives them good health and fitness and teaches them to kind of set some goals and how to push themselves and be better at what they are doing athletically as much as they can but mostly have fun, that’s really what the goal for us is.

I think coaches are concerned, I mean I’ve talked to enough of them and as a former high school coach myself, I know the pressures that I would get from parents. Whether it was before the game, before tryouts, even during games. So I think coaches are under particularly at the youth level are under a lot of pressure from parents. And I think it is more an aspect that drives a lot of really good coaches out of the business unfortunately. So what I would like to see is coaches who just deal with it head on. And whether it’s a parent meeting or an after game meeting and just say here are the standards of conduct for our organization, for our team. And here is how I expect parents to act on the side lines and here is what I’m willing to do after the game as far as playing time and decisions I’ve made on the field, those kind of things.

I think as kids progress, I’ve got two now that compete in high school, it’s slightly different, has become more professionalized, where the coaches have that kind of training to directly deal with that. Probably a little less parent involvement than at the youth sports leagues from what we’ve seen. But again we try to emulate what the coaches would expect. And from time to time we talk in decent way with the other parents to make sure as a group we are not doing things that the coaches don’t appreciate, and don’t think are healthy for the coaching environment that they are in, and really try to support those coaches as much as you possibly can.