Youth Sports: US Youth Sports Parents The World's Worst

We're the worst!#@!

I was surprised, but not really, when I read that US youth sports parents ranked the worst in terms of sideline behavior in a well written post on the blog Ask Coach Wolff by Doug Abrams called If Parents and Coaches Were Angels. 


Reuters News and Ipsos conducted a 22 nation poll that ranked parents in the USA as the world's worst behaved at youth sporting events.

Percentage of people who reported that they had attended youth sports contests and witnessed parents being verbally or physically abusive toward coaches or officials: 

#1 USA (60%)

#2 India (59%)

Suck it India USA is #1

#3 Italy (55%)

#4 Argentina (54%)

#5 Canada (53%)

The Main Point

60% really. It has to be much higher than that. The only way it could be 60% is if 40% of the people who attend youth sporting events in America with any regularity are deaf and blind. 

I'm considered a calm person and I've barked at incompetent refs, annoying coaches and my kids on occasion. Almost every game I watch I see one of the behaviors listed below. The other polls Doug Abrams quotes show the numbers much higher.

Here are all the scenarios - lets √ to see if my kids and I have witnessed the following behaviors:

√ Youth athletes watched parents yelling at children

√ Youth athlete watched parents yelling at coaches or officials

√ Youth athletes had watched coaches yelling at officials or children

√ Youth had watched violence by an adult fan in the stands against other adults

√ Youth had watched violence by an adult fan against a ref