And This? Is What’s Wrong With Youth Sports In America

Okay everyone listen up….I am going to apologize right now for what I am about to do to your eyes with the most horribly written email ever that I have copied below.    To give you a little back story, this was sent to the husband of one of my best friends.    Understandably,  my friend is very upset by this as her husband is truly one of the nicest and most well intentioned people you will ever meet.   Also, he is a giant.    No really, he’s like 6’5″ or something.    Sadly, she made the mistake of asking me to help compose a response.  ::snort::  So without further adieu, allow  me to share with you how the combination of  bad grammar and stereotypical fanaticism over Texas football are never a good idea.  (Names have been changed to protect the asshole innocent.)

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Coach David.  My Name is Tom Tulcote  (Devin’s Father) and I never thought I would ever be sending a message like this to a coach.  I have coached Devin’s soccer teams for the last 4 years and have been very excited to get him in tackle football.   Every day over the past two years after school I have had him go to the school track and run 4 laps before walking home.    He is the fastest runner on your team.    I have watched several practices including last night and I can no longer bite my tongue over what I am seeing out there.  The only kids I see you coaching out there is your own and the other coaches out there seem to be coaching the rest of them.  Not once did you walk away from your own son to see what the other kids at the other stations were doing.  You have my son playing Tackle(really).  He can run faster than anyone out there including Seth who is not even old enough to be on the team. Devin practiced hard yesterday and like always was on time.  Seth  didn’t even get there till scrimmage time and you pulled Devin out to let Seth  go in.  Devin  EARNED the right to get to play last night  and you made him sit out twice.  He wants JUST A CHANCE to get to work in the backfield but you seem to have already filed those spots and there back ups.  You had the smallest two kids on our team playing guards during scrimmage and were facing kids on the other team twice their size.   That is why we were getting creamed at the line of scrimmage.  On one play one of them got the crap knocked out of him but you didn’t see it because you were as usual coaching your own son. You didn’t even try to help them when they were getting creamed by the defensive line, but your son and a couple of the others that you blatantly seem to only have time for where getting plenty of advice.  You told the kids to be ready to jump in at any position but you are only giving your favorites the chance to show what they can do.  I hoped all the kids would get a chance at all positions but that has not AT ALL been the case.  This has become the David and Carson Vander  show instead of  the Falcons 8 year olds.  If your son and UNDERAGED Seth (how did he even get on the team?  He is only 7) are getting better, It’s because they are the only ones getting a chance and getting some instructions.

I have never seen any dad show favor to their own son as much as I have seen you do.   You have not even shared the plays to any of the kids other than your favorites.  How are they going to learn or get a chance?   If you want to discuss this with me, I can be reached @ 555-363-8000 anytime.  If not I will forward this to the Commissioner  in hopes that  he will listen.

Tom Tulcote

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Okay, so you get the picture right?   This guy is full of THE CRAZY.   The team is  three practices in…”David” is still trying to figure out the team and they haven’t played a single game yet.    It drove me crazy because “David”  is one of my very favorite people and is amazing with kids.    He’s like a gentle giant,  encouraging and amazingly wonderful with kids.   Having known him for 15 years, there is no way he is discriminating against anyone’s kids…let alone in favor of his own.

Also, this business of “my kid is the BEST so deal with it”  makes me nuts.   It’s  a team sport, learn to take turns and give everyone a chance to grow.  It sure as hell isn’t the Superbowl just yet.

After taking a stab at writing something serious which he could actually use, I decided that we needed to inject some humor into this situation STAT.       For your reading pleasure (and also with paragraphs and punctuation!):

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Tom;

Thank you for your email which has caused me to go blind from your apparent inability to separate sentences into paragraphs.    Additionally, I’d like to compliment you on your spelling (it’s “filled” not “filed”,  etc etc) AS WELL AS YOUR OVER USE OF THE CAPS LOCK KEY.

I am so glad that someone has finally seen through my evil plan to achieve world domination by coaching small boys in football.    I choose to work only with the smallest  as well as my son because they are the ones who I can scare the most and fear is an important part of building an army of short, heavily padded minions to do my bidding.   The fact that your son Devin can run faster than ANYONE only means one thing….I have to run faster than I care to in order to hunt him down, force him supplicate himself and surrender to the David and Carson Vander show.  Quite frankly Tom,  I’m too busy staring in the mirror at my own glorious reflection or extolling the virtues of my obviously perfect son to undertake such an endeavor.

My best advice to you is to come over here and kiss my ass, given my height vs. yours, I doubt you’d even have to bend over.

Best,

David

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Sadly, I think he sent a far more politically correct version in response.  But tell me, do you think I got the point across?