Saturday, February 09, 2008

Why-M-C-A

Okay, this is going to be a mom-centric parental rant, so bear with me -

My kid loves basketball - loves it - he's been on 4 different teams within the last year - if there's a youth sports organization here in the armpit of Texas, we're involved with it.

In spite of the fact that my kid's pretty good on the hardwood, he usually ends up on teams that are the basketball version of the Bad News Bears - which is fine, I mean, losing builds character, right? And he plays because he loves the game, not because winning is everything.

In November, he got a call from some kid he knew from school asking him if he wanted to play on the local YMCA team. This is like asking Paula Deen if she'd like some extra butter - duh, of course.

He gets on this team and - shock of all shocks, they're pretty good - and by pretty good, I mean that they were undefeated in their division (3rd and 4th grade boys).

Last night was their championship game and they have been anticipating it for weeks! When the other team showed up, my husband and I noticed that there were a couple of new kids on the team (new as in they weren't on that team before) and these new kids were TALL. My husband commented that there was no way that these kids were in 3rd or 4th grade.

My kid's team went out and played their little asses off - they played so hard, through minor injuries and a couple of questionable calls from the refs, but they still lost by 2 points. It was heartbreaking.

When all of us parents went over to console our little future-NBA-ers, we found out that the 2 new kids on the other team were in 6th grade.

So... the coach of the opposing team was so desperate to win that he recruited a couple of 12-year-olds in order to beat our 8 & 9-year-olds... Now, I've been attempting to rein myself in and not be one of "those" parents who throws a fit and contests every little thing, but there were several concerned moms who were about ready to throw down with the YMCA officials who had been made aware of the situation prior to the game.

Words were exchanged and the officials assured our team that we were the champions and that we would receive medals next week.

It's still a shitty situation, but - whatever, right? The other team is disqualified and the rightful team wins, right? Except that after our team left, the other team was quietly given medals... Great - thanks, YMCA, for your "Christian values" like endangering young kids, bringing in ringers and showing kids that it's okay to cheat because you'll still be rewarded.

When we saw most of these parents at another game (different league) today , it appears that several of them aren't willing to let it drop - there has even been talk of going to the local media. I mean, I know it's not the NBA, but to these boys, it kind of is. So, I wrote an angry email to the main YMCA and will be calling the local YMCA people on Monday.

But I do think that our team was maybe a little pleased to know that the other coach had to recruit 6th graders to try to beat them (and they gave those big kids a run for their money*).

So there ya go - corruption in the youth sports** of Corpus Christi and some angry moms to the rescue.


*If I was those kids, I'd be mortified that I almost got beat by a bunch of kids 4 years younger than myself

** I heard a phrase comparing arguing over the internet to competing in the Special Olympics - well, cheating in youth basketball is kind of like that - even if you win, you're still... riding the short bus

Labels: adventures in shitty parenting