Read On a Scale from Idiot to Complete Jerk for Free Online Page A

and are generally very badly paid. Actually, as I understand it, coaches at my level don’t get any money for coaching. Which makes it really amazing that they show up at all, to be honest.
    So most people like my parents are just very, very—almost tearfully—grateful that they don’t have to be the one showing up for the six am hockey practice or playing keep-away basketball with a gym full of hyper five-year-olds. Yes, coaches deserve a lot of praise for what they do. But I’ve strayed here from the focus of this project. The question is, can coaches be jerks?
    I have personally never had a coach who was a jerk. There was an assistant coach on my hockey team (let’s be honest—he was a dad who wanted the coachlike authority but none of the pressure) when I was eight who would push us onto the ice during line changes, so that we’d go sprawling on our skinny eight-year-old legs. He claimed it was just to “start us off.” He was an idiot (but probably only a 3 or 4 on the scale), but otherwise, I’ve been pretty lucky.
    My brother Joe? Not so lucky. He had a soccer coach a couple of summers ago who was unbelievable. I’m talking off the Jerk-O-Meter, ranting, cheating, hypercompetitive lunatic jerk. Coaching six-year-olds! Here’s a tip. If a coach ever SCREAMS at a six-year-old, he’s a complete jerk. This guy would scribble out complicated “plays” on clipboards and then yell at the team to “run the offense! RUN. THE. OFFENSE!” Sir, you have only two players willing to even get on the field, because the others have either quit, are crying or are hiding behind their parents’ legs.
    Incidentally, this coach’s daughter was a total cheater too, once scoring a goal by throwing the ball into the opposing net while the ref wasn’t looking. The coach saw it, but whooped and hand-slapped as if it was a genuine, non-cheater goal. Which raises once again the important scientific question of whether jerkishness is a trait passed down from parent to child, from generation to generation. (See Chapter 6.) Anyway, long story short, the team folded and the league had to call in counselors mid-season. Joe hasn’t touched a soccer ball since.
    C) Fans
    Whether they are friends or family members, fans are a huge part of any game. That’s why playing at home gives a team a 27 percent increased chance of winning. Twenty-seven percent! Okay, I made up that percentage, but I’m sure it’s somewhere around that. Ever hear of home-field advantage? It’s not actually the field that’s the advantage. I used to think that too. Turns out it’s mostly the fans.

    Speaking from a junior high sports perspective, most of our fans are parents who clap politely and yell “good try” even when it wasn’t. Sometimes groups of friends come out and act stupid, but in a fun way. Sometimes things turn ugly. And here we have to talk about Mrs. Malinowski. I can use her real name because the Malinowskis moved away last year. Far, far away.
    CASE STUDY #5
The Fan Who Cost Us the Game
    Subject: Mrs. Malinowski, Stuart’s mom
    Laboratory: Our school gym, our final basketball game last season (this case study is from memory, but it was a very, very memorable game)
    Experiment: Despite Stuart Malinowski’s hiding the fact that he made the junior basketball team and deliberately shredding all paperwork about game times and tournament schedules, his mom somehow managed to show up for everything. She seemed like a normal mom if you saw her driving their van or chatting with a teacher, but man, get her in a gym or an arena and she was a complete monster. I knew this from early hockey days when she would bang her feet on the bleachers so loudly that you could feel the vibrations through your skates on the ice. Also, she used an air horn, which didn’t do anything other than make kids on both teams startle, skitter and fall. Anyway, this