Parent Trap: Parental control can challenge prep coaches

Jonny Matich was horrified.

As he walked toward the team bus after coaching the Granger Lancers in a Region 6 football loss to Highland last fall, Matich — now the head coach at Taylorsville — was alerted to a frightening scene he was about to find.

His defensive coordinator, Dee McCormick, had just been attacked by the parent of one of his players and lay motionless on the sideline. McCormick's face and head had been bloodied, his jaw and left cheekbone broken by a parent who used a helmet to assault him.

"I had never seen anything like it," Matich said. "I hope I never do again."

The assault left Matich questioning if he was in the right profession. Is this what coaching high school sports had come to? Are parents this passionate about their kids playing sports that they'll resort to violence if they disagree with coaches?

It was obviously an extreme case of poor relations — likely the worst in state history — between high school coaches and the parents of the kids they mentor. It was also one that all hope isn't repeated.

Parents can have a huge impact on high school sports programs. They can be supportive by helping with fundraising, and they can privately reinforce what coaches are trying to teach their kids.

They can also cause dissension within programs by questioning strategy and personnel moves, and undermine coaching staffs by shouting "advice" from the bleachers. If they get really upset, they can band together and put pressure on administrators to make coaching changes. And they can be successful in doing so.

Coach-parent relationships aren't what they once were.

"The climate is different now than what it was even five years ago," said Judge Memorial's Jeff Myaer, who took a one-year sabbatical from coaching after leading the Bulldogs' baseball team to a second-place finish in the 3A state tournament in May. "I don't think my parents even talked to my coaches. They just sent me off to my practices and my games."

There still are parents of high school athletes who do that, but seemingly many more who are active in sports programs both positively and negatively. There are multiple dynamics that go into coach-parent relationships, making what can sometimes be a complicated connection.

Dynamic relationship

It can sometimes blow the minds of high school coaches when they have unruly parents. The reason for that, they say, is both groups usually have the same interests in mind.