The Culture Is Changing

Jack had an unfortunate experience at a youth flag football game yesterday due to parents almost coming to blows... Our culture is changing and it's not for the better. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our culture is screwed, as we've talked about to many
times on this show, and I saw an example of
that in youth sports yesterday with my own eyes. The
sort of thing I've seen in YouTube videos for many
years now, parents going nuts at kids sporting events, but
I've never seen it in person until yesterday. And it
came just short of becoming a national video. Just this

(00:23):
close to punches being thrown, lots of people had their
phones out, including my kid's mom. She thought, man, when
punches fly, I want to get this on video, and
it had been a big deal. So executive producer hands
and joins us, are you well, are you comfortable talking
about this Anton since you've been coaching and stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Oh? Sure, I mean I'm in.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
I'm still in the midst of it too, so right,
so yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
I want to start here before I get to the
end of the game and what happened with the parents
and everything like that. I was commenting to a couple
of people as sitting with about the kids showboating, which
I think plays a role in how hot it gets
with the parents. Is that something you see You're in
You're in baseball mostly.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Uh, yeah, there's a lot more of that than now
than ever before. It's acceptable to you know, you see
a lot like in Major League Baseball, the bat flip
is a real big thing, so the kids can't do
that in Little league, but you see a lot of
that sort of wanting to have fun and always show
your excitement at every different play.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Right, and they see it on TV and sports on
television is as Joe and I always point out, it's entertainment.
It's a TV show, so they're trying to make it
as entertaining as possible, which I was so I was
always fine that with that at the professional level. But
the kids all replicate it now and every play has
some showboating involved in it, practically every play and certainly

(01:46):
every big play, and I think it gets people more
riled up and gets the parents hotter. For instance, kid
catches a ball running in for a touchdown, turns around,
does the wave at the guy behind him as a ohh,
twelve year olds or you intercept the ball and you
turn in, you're in your face and you know, doing
all kinds of gestures and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Pull their flag. You're just supposed to draw.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
It's flag football, for crying out, it's the twelve year
old flag football.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
You pull their flag, you're.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Supposed to just drop it word it is before their flag,
and you kind of stick it in their face.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
And everybody's doing that.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
And I would throw a flag every time for that
fifteen yards for taunting, but that's me.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Well they but they don't. And again, it's a cultural
thing that I don't know what to do about. I'm
the oldest dad there, so I mean, I'd come from
a completely different era. But the coaches don't do anything
about the showboarding, and the parents don't seem to care.

Speaker 4 (02:39):
My dad would have never allowed us to act like
that right different time, but no parents seem to care.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Does anybody police it? For your your experience?

Speaker 3 (02:51):
I gotta say, I think your league has a problem
because that in my son's leagues, his flag football leagues,
they would have never let that fly there. There's penalties
for unsportsmenlike cond and that sounds like they're way too
permissive with all the celebrations.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
I don't have any idea, you know, I only see
the one the one league, the one games and that
sort of stuff, and I just I was amazed that
kids get to act that way.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
And so is that an officiating thing. Is that a
parent's thing.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Is that a coaching thing to all of the above,
because I guess the parents would push the coaches or
push the referees to not allow that sort of thing
to happen.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Again, this might be a go ahead.

Speaker 4 (03:25):
I would say, having coached youth sports for years and
years and years, leagues have cultures, and parents generally will
accept that culture if it is uniformly described and.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Enforced, and uh, it makes the games more exciting. I
will say that the show voting the showboat because everybody
gets so riled up. But it's not good. It's not
not in a good way, not in a good way whatsoever.
So anyway, I wanted to bring that up because I
think that leads to the outcome you get at the
end of the game. So you got the two undefeated

(04:00):
teams playing each other in the flag football tournament yesterday,
and it's so it's it's the who's gonna be the
best team? And my son's on one of the teams,
and it ends up being a incredibly close game, and
it comes down to the last play of the game.
The scores close enough, it's fourth down. They're either gonna
score on this play and win or the other team wins.

(04:21):
I mean, it's very clear to everyone this is a
one play deal. We got eight seconds left. Whole ball
of axes right here, after all the screaming and yelling
and all the excitement everything like that.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Quite a ball of axe we're talking about too.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
Yes, So for those of you who are a wax
ball enthusiasts.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Guy drops back, and I don't want to get into
the specific of the game. I think they got job,
but none of that matters that that doesn't matter at all.
That's got nothing to do with it. But anyway, guy
for guy for the other team drops back to pass,
runs around, runs rounds, getting chased, almost gets its flag yanked,
throws a crazy hill mary. It gets tipped, bounces through
two guys hands, one guy catches it from that team
comes down, scores, but there's a flag on the play

(05:00):
back at the quarterback. So they the referee threw a flag,
they call it a touchdown. That other team jumps around
because they just won the championship. The other team where
the flag.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
You had threw a flag? What's with the flag?

Speaker 1 (05:12):
So the referees and then then the parents start going crazy.
So when the other team wins immediately the parents, which
I gotta say, this is absolutely true and I'm not
just biased here. The parents on the other team behaved
incredibly poorly. The parents on our side of the aisle
did not do any of this, But the parents on
the other side of the team are the other side

(05:32):
of the field.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
They were in kids' faces doing the bye bye bye
bye bye to all these twelve year old children.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
Twelve year olds were right in their faces because they
just won and it was unbelievable, which obviously made thinks
ramp things up and made it hotter with the.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Well, what's it the flag? You threw a flag?

Speaker 1 (05:50):
How's that a touchdown?

Speaker 2 (05:51):
You threw a flag?

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Blah blah blah, Bye bye, bye bye, You're not undefeated anymore,
bye bye?

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Like what are you grown ups?

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Are you actual grown up saying this to twelve year
old and scream it across the field? You have comment ansling, Oh,
I mean I've seen stuff like that. Not that's the worst.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
I've seen a few things so as similar, but you've
eclipsed and anything that I've read.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
So the referees who are in a difficult spot always
with these things because they're amateurs they're young. Sometimes they're
just volunteers. I think in this case they might have
been getting a couple of bucks. But either way, and
I think what ultimately happened to skip to the punchline.
I think they ultimately decided the direction that was gonna

(06:32):
make it least likely that they got punched in the face.
I think the scariest, loudest parents one purely out of
fear and intimidation. But anyway, these poor referees, after the
whole flag thing, they went back and they said, flag
on the plane, not a touchdown.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
The other our team are rops and excited. The kids
are jumping around, high five and everything.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
The parents on the other side, af you dfield. They're
just screaming and yelling, screaming at the refs. Everybody's in
a round round. All of a sudden, there's some hubbub.
The referees get together. They said, after looking it over,
the flag was thrown in inadvertently. It was not a
flag on the play. The other team wins, s goes
back to the other team. If they start jumping around

(07:14):
pointing everybody's faces, the parents are back to the.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Bye bye, af you.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
The coach on our side now that it's gone back
and forth three times. I think it ends up going
back in total of three times. He starts screaming at
the referees in a way that was a little over
the top, but anyway. One of the referees got so
hot started to run across the field screaming f you
at him. The other referees had to get in front
of him and restrain him, actually restraining the referee from

(07:40):
the coach from fighting the guy just and I was
standing there watching my mouth open, like I can't believe
this is actually happening again, with the parents specifically on
the other side, just behaving as awful as you could
possibly imagine. Somehow, in all this madness, a decision has
made to redo the play.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
So they bring the ball out.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
They bring the ball out, and they set it on
the yard marker and they start messing with the clock
and everything like that, and our team is like, okay,
that sounds cool, and I think most of the parent
at least on arts I thought this might be the
best way to settle it. Let's just do the play
again and see what happens, and then we'll just call
it good. But somehow, in that the other team parents
who were scary looking people started screaming you fu at

(08:24):
the referees, and the referee said, no more play, We're
gonna give it to you. So that was their I think,
fourth different decision at the end of this game. And
the coach on our side actually got kicked off of
the field told he had to leave the field because
he was so hot. And I really think what actually
ultimately happened was the referees gave in to the side

(08:47):
that was the scariest, which might happen a lot like it.
It might be what I would do. I might do
the same thing. You're a psycho, you go ahead, you want.
It's twelve year old flag football.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
I don't care.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
I'm going to my car and going home, and I'm
not doing this anymore.

Speaker 4 (09:00):
I would have been tempted, as the head referee to say,
we're gonna call the league office. We'll be right back.
Gotten in my car and gone home. Hey, guys, come,
we're out of here. We'll let these maniacs kill each
other whatever they want to do over some stupid little
kids football game.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
That would be a great idea. Get all the referees together,
we're gonna have a big meeting right over there behind
the building. We'll be back in two minutes.

Speaker 4 (09:23):
Two minutes, everybody, two minutes, start counting. Now, get in
your cars and leave, bunch of sick ohs. That's what
I'd have been saying.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
My ultimate point being, this sort of thing happens regularly. Now,
it didn't used to ever happen. Why don't more people
recognize that as a problem. Something has happened in our culture?

Speaker 4 (09:43):
Yeah, I mean, obviously one could write a four hundred
and fifty page book answering here implied question what's happened
and what can be done about it?

Speaker 2 (09:55):
Is the ultimate problem, and that it's so hard to
change culture.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
I mean, it's not like you can come up with
a imple answer where well, you know, you raise the
age of this, or increase the price of that or whatever.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Right, there's not quick fixing this. Yeah, I would agree completely.

Speaker 4 (10:08):
I mean it's very difficult, and it's simple and yet difficult.
I almost said complicated. But it's not in a way
traditional American values, and among them sportsmanship, you know, contributing
to your community, you know, duty before selfishness, et cetera.

(10:32):
They have been shamed by thinkers primarily on the left,
the idea that you can stand up for traditional American
values and say, hey, these are better values. We have
a better society when these are our values. People have
been shamed out of saying that because it's been called
racist or whatever, pobe or what have you. Here's some

(10:54):
sort of you know, Christian theocracy insisting on sort of behavior.
I think that's ridiculous. Some values work way better than others.
Some societies are much more healthy, productive, and successful than others.
And I think the values that lead to healthy, successful

(11:14):
and happy are better values than your craphole country values,
for instance. Or you're rougher, nastier parts of our country values.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
I'd be interesting some of you all think about this.
The degradation of culture, not the specific game are strong