Pee Wee Football Coaches Gone Wild!

I can’t begin to tell you how disturbed I was when I saw this ad this weekend.

First of all because:

The Esquire Network is a thing? Good Lord there are officially too many channels (sorry ESPN 18).

More importantly because this show highlights everything wrong with youth football.

Screaming coaches with no rational thoughts in their addled heads, parents telling their kids to play tougher, encouraging kids to hurt other kids, consequences be damned—every nightmare about youth football in one show.

And of course it takes place in Texas, home of the incredibly and frighteningly intense football culture (see the book Friday Night Lights if you don’t believe me). There’s even terribly dangerous, helmet-leading tackling.

I’m sure there’s some positive stuff in there….probably right after commercial break when you’re up grabbing a beer or something.

I’m sure this is an entertaining show, in a cringe-inducing, stomach-churning way.

I know leagues are like this in many sports. I know it because I’ve seen parents get into fights, scream expletives at their kids and take a game the child loved and make it into a way for the adults to relive their own playing days. I get that. And I get that the over-the-top insanity is compelling television. Would you feel like watching if it was all positive? Probably, but when it comes to “reality TV” yelling is selling ads.

But this is profoundly disturbing to me. Encouraging kids to hurt other kids? There’s a disconnect there.

I tell my kids to hit hard and I talk about making the other team want to give up but to physically tell someone to hit the other team so hard they don’t get up? That’s a really scary thing to be telling children.

And a scary thing for parents to see if their kids want to play.

There’s encouraging kids to play hard, to play through aches and pains, to attack the other team—and then there’s screaming at kids, making them cry and telling them they should be injuring other players.

This is going to make youth leagues wince because selling parents on the sport will get harder if anyone sees this garbage (assuming the preview is really indicative of the show). You already have to deal with worries about concussions and other injuries—now you have these coaches as examples of what youth football is about.

All I can say is, as hard as we are on the kids where I coach, we don’t do this. We go out of our way to provide a safe environment for our kids.

None of us are auditioning for the NFL like these coaches seem to be,

I mean, holy shit.

Hey, are you following Dad Moon Rising on Twitter or Facebook? Why the hell not?

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