Here's a question for you. In what public places, do children often act more mature than their parents?

If you guessed athletic venues, you are correct. In national growing numbers, full-grown adults curse at each other, berate game officials, yell at their kids and even assault each other. All this nonsense happens while the young players are trying to have fun and perform well at the same time.I have coached football, baseball and men's softball for more than 40 years. My players have been as young as 6 years old and as old as 35. Currently, I am a sports writer for this newspaper, the Times News. Throughout the years, I have witnessed terrible adult behavior at many kid's sporting events.More times than not, if you would look at the child while his father or mother displays despicable behavior, the poor kid lowers his head. He's embarrassed and ashamed that his parent is making a public fool of himself or herself. Some kids, however, will display the same antics of their parents, which is even worse.Here is an example. A man jumped into his car and followed a 14-year-old umpire who was riding his bicycle home after officiating a 7-year-old girls' softball game. The man drove the kid off the road. He got out of his car, grabbed the boy and broke his arm. Try to guess the reason he gave after assault charges were filed. The kid called a strike three against the man's daughter to end the game. The idiot father thought the pitch was outside the strike zone.There are other ugly scenes I have witnessed, but they are few and far between those where parents just act plain stupid. To prove my point, I'd like to imagine sarcastic comeback lines given by the kids to the following real situations that I have also witnessed firsthand.A 10-year-old pitcher, who has visibly struggled to control his pitches, walks four batters in a row. From the stands his father yells, "Just throw strikes!" Wouldn't it be great if the kid yelled this remark back at his Dad? "Oh, OK, Dad. Glad you told me. I was going to keep on walking the hitters so we lose the game. Now I'll throw strikes."An 11-year-old boy swings badly and misses. He has two strikes. His father, leaning against the fence yells, "Keep your elbow up. Don't swing at high pitches. Watch out for the curve ball. Make sure you swing at the ball that's close. You have two strikes now. You'd better swing at anything close." This poor kid should drop the bat and say, "Hey, Dad, why don't you take my bat and hit for me so I can see exactly what I'm supposed to do."A 12-year-old playing left field drops an easy fly ball that loses the game for his team. While his face is flooding with tears, his mother says, "Don't worry about it. It's only a game." What if he looked up at his mother and said, " You're right, Mom. I'll tell my team that I didn't care I dropped it. I'm sure they'll understand."A mother says, "You're better than that other kid playing second base, He stinks." Her son might remark, "Why don't you tell my coach, Mom. I know he'll agree with you and play me instead."I've heard a father yell angrily at his son who was enjoying a victory after the game with his teammates. His father screams, "I'm taking you off this team. You sit the bench too much." As his teammates eat ice cream, the kid droops his shoulders and gets into the car. His father, after yelling at the coach, speeds away in a cloud of dust. The boy might say, "Thanks Dad. You just took me away from my friends that I will never see again."I have a friend who became a new coach of a Little League Baseball team in Florida. He had watched the team play a few games before he took over. When he held a meeting to introduce himself to the parents of his players, he told them he could make each of their kids a better baseball player without using a bat, a ball or a glove."Oh yeah, how you gonna do that?" smirked someone from the back of the room."Stop yelling at your kids."Rich Strack can be reached at

katehep11@gmail.com.