8 Psychotic Overreactions by Adults at Youth Sporting Events
Anybody who played sports as a kid has probably had one or both of their parents behave in such a ridiculously embarrassing manner during a game that it still makes us cringe just to think about it. So it should come as no surprise that on athletic fields around the world, the phenomena known as Sideline Rage (that is, adults acting like unbalanced assholes during children's sporting events) seems to have gotten even more terrifying since we were kids.
Dentist Dad Rigs Helmet to Make Opposing Players Bleed
As much as every parent says, "It doesn't matter if you win as long as you have fun," nobody wants their kid running around picking daisies in the outfield and taking fancy-pants swings at the ball. Sure, you can make your kid do extra practice at home, or maybe even spring for a personal trainer. Or, if you're like dentist and overzealous sports dad Dr. Stephen Cito, you can weaponize your son's football helmet before a big game.
Not quite this, but almost.
Taking a page out sports legend Ty Cobb's playbook, Dr. Cito sharpened the face guard of his son's football helmet so it would slash any opposing players that got close enough. His son wore the death helmet in a game against high school rival Albuquerque Academy. After five players were taken off the field with lacerations, referees halted the game, and an inspection of the Cito's super-helmet revealed it was "sharp enough to shred a magazine cover."
Hopefully this one.
Let's make it clear: He didn't rig this thing to scratch up some arms and hands and make the game a little tougher on the other team. One opposing player had to be taken to the hospital to get 10 stitches on his arm. Yes, this is a real thing that happened.
Cito's son was expelled from St. Pious High and banned from competition for a year. Dr. Cito himself was charged with conspiring to commit aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced to two days in jail, one year probation and 400 hours community service, presumably teaching little leaguers how to file down a toothbrush and hide it in their glove.
Son, Sometimes You Just Have to Poison Your Teammates
Inner team conflict can definitely ruin an organization's chances for success.
"I've had it with your GODDAMN BALL HOGGING!"
So when your kid has a teammate who's giving him problems, you can teach him to stand up for himself, or even give him some basic conflict resolution techniques. Or, you could go Jerome Breland's way and add ipecac (ie "a chemical that makes you vomit violently") to a juice bottle, then have your son give it to the kid who's pissing him off.
If the uncontrollable puking isn't enough, keep in mind that ipecac can lead to serious illness or death if administered improperly (a phrase which here means "secretly feeding it to a child"). Breland's diabolical plan for clandestine revenge ran into trouble when the rest of the team wound up drinking the spiked juice as well.
Practice for the team's upcoming championship game ended abruptly, as players began running off the field, clutching their stomachs and puking Go-Gurt all over the sidelines. Unaware that the children had essentially been poisoned, parents and coaches rushed eight of the kids to local hospitals thinking they'd caught a new strain of Ebola from the monkey meat they use in the cafeteria meatloaf.
A police investigation uncovered Breland's nefarious deed and he was sentenced to six months' house arrest and one year of community service, because what community wouldn't benefit from the forced labor of a man who purposely caused serious harm to young children.
Dad Buys Entire League for His Son, Then Kills It
When Virginia dad Dan Hinkle flipped out over his son's field reassignment during a big game, he acted like the entire league revolved around his kid. Though, he kind of had a point on that one.
See, Hinkle personally bankrolled the 250 player strong football league called the "South County Youth Association" to the tune of $150,000 and had named himself commissioner. He advised the coaches of his son's team that "Scott does not sit out on defense--ever. The entire league exists so he can play defense on the best team in his weight class. He is my son, I own the league, and he plays every snap on defense."
Because if you're going to sponsor little league football,
you might as well rule it with an iron fist.
When Hinkle (who didn't even attend the game in question) found out that his son had been moved from defense to offense for the final game of the season, resulting in an overtime win that put the team in the postseason, he fired all the coaches and hired replacements for the playoff games.
In protest, the team of 12 to 14-year olds refused to play for the new coaches, so the playoffs went on without them. The entire South County Association was eventually dissolved when it was decided that they had not complied with the rules, which include having an elected board and a grievance procedure and not being run by a five-year-old douchebag in a man's body.
Volleyball Coach Plays the Cleaver Card
Kennedy Middle School volleyball coach Toni Gay suffered an embarrassing loss when her entire team was disqualified from a game because of derogatory comments made by a fan.
Gay, overcome with white-hot fury, walked out to her car, grabbed a meat cleaver and tried to bring it back inside with her. While we can only speculate on why she happened to have a cleaver in her car, there isn't a whole lot of wiggle room when it comes to figuring out why she would want to introduce one to an argument.
Gay later explained in her defense that things had gotten "just crazy,'' a fact which no one disputed but was still not enough to keep her from getting fired, arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and unlawful use of a weapon on school property, leading us to wonder what exactly constitutes lawful use of a weapon on school property.
The answer is Christian Slater in Heathers.
Cop Pays Kid for Beanball
Throwing brushbacks and beanballs to intimidate batters have a long and dubious history in professional baseball. Major League pitchers have been known to rocket the ball directly into someone's face to settle scores.
And to field test Sammy Sosa's helmets.
While the stakes shouldn't be anywhere near as high in little league games, that didn't prevent one of Pennsylvania's finest from bribing a 10-year-old to peg one of the players on the other team. Police Officer Shawn Patrick Philips, who was on duty at the time, paid the pint-size hurler two dollars to clip a clean-up batter with a fastball. The exchange reportedly went down behind the elementary school bike racks. We are not making this up.
"And put some stank on it!"
Sure enough, the kid beaned his opponent, and the cop forked over the two bucks. Then he got caught.
The jury apparently didn't buy Philip's claims that he was "only joking" and had given the player the $2 for listening to his pitching tips or that the kid was the target of a major undercover sting operation. Philips was convicted of corruption of minors and solicitation to commit simple assault. The pitcher learned a valuable, symbolic lesson about sports and the world of grownups in general.
The Topless Hockey Mom
Ripping on the fans of the opposing team is essentially a sports tradition, and hockey is probably the sport with the most rabidly aggressive players and fanbase in the United States, probably because they know nobody is watching them.
These guys might as well be invisible.
However, one Toronto mom decided it was high time the world took notice. During a match-up of rival pee-wee teams the York Toros and Mississauga Terriers, the crowd of parents, understandably rowdy after being stirred up by the intensity only prepubescent hockey players can bring, had been trading verbal blows all night. Then, in a move that left the league president "aghast," the hockey mom in question lifted her blouse and heroically taunted fans of the opposing team by shaking her breasts.
The unnamed mother was subsequently banned from attending league games for a year, but her kid's team, the York Toros, wound up winning 4-0, presumably because their opponents, the Mississauga Terriers, had accepted a bribe of boobtastic nudity.
The Human Pyramid of Shame
The urge to brag about their children is fairly strong in most parents, regardless of whether or not their little bastards have any unique talents worth praising. Of course, preening sports parents are no different, but bragging on the sidelines can be a dangerous game. When one child's triumph is another's crippling display of failure, the line between earnest celebration and dirty assholery becomes pretty blurry.
"Sure we won, but more importantly you fucking lost."
For example, to celebrate their kids' shutout over the Lacey Bobcats, parents of elementary school players from Yelm, WA formed a human pyramid on the field, presumably in an attempt to form a Voltron of parental douchebaggery. This was only the beginning.
Apparently a parent from the losing football team thought the whole pyramid thing was a slap in the face, so she charged the flesh pyramid and starting beating the shit out of people with her umbrella.
Within seconds of her attack, about 15 others joined in the melee that eventually sent one man to the hospital with a neck injury. Two women, a teenager and one in her 50s, were arrested for assault. It is unknown whether or not the melee took place with both sides forming human battle pyramids, but hopefully they did and hopefully there is video somewhere.
The Case of the Cheerleader and the Hitman
Considering this one has been the subject of not one, but two separate TV movies, you know it's going to be good.
She had to be in one of them.
Hoping to spare her daughter the pain and humiliation of being passed over by her junior high cheerleading squad, Wanda Holloway took aim at her daughter's cheerleading rival. She needed the other girl to drop out of the running, but how? Send her threatening notes? Vandalize her home?
Nah, not good enough. No, she decided the best thing to do would be to arrange for a hitman to kill the girl's mother. Holloway figured a 13-year-old girl would be so rattled over her mom's death that she wouldn't feel like cheerleading.
"Wait, you want me to do what?"
Thankfully, the plan fell through, as often happens with plans made by people too crazy to tie their own shoes. Holloway was convicted of solicitation of capital murder, but after serving six months of her 10-year sentence the judge ordered that she finish the remaining nine and a half years on probation.
Eh, it should be fine. Six months is long enough to cure that kind of crazy, right?
You can read more from Diana on her Tumblr or follow her on Twitter. For more psychotic overreactions, click here to read the sequel to this article.
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To find out why these assholes act like this, check out 5 Douchebag Behaviors Explained by Science. Or learn about some famous jerks in 7 Beloved Celebrities And The Awful Shit You Forgot They Did.
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