Kids, I swear....

[Mark42]

Wife and I took our two youngest (Amber, 7 and Eric, 4) to the park. They were playing with lots of other kids for quite a while with no problems. Amber is protective of her 4 year old brother.

When a bigger kid, looks to be about 9 or 10 wearing a football jersey shoved Eric out of the opening of the big cork screw slide, Amber spoke up and said "Hey, don't shove him, be nice to him". The kid responded "Why should I? I'm a football player".

I couldn't believe my ears. Amber was mad and came down and told me what just happened. I told her she did the right thing sticking up for her brother and that kid is just a jerk and stay away from him.

Where the heck did this kid get the idea its OK to treat others badly because he is a football player?

Would love to meet his parents.

 

[woodrat]

Re: Kids, I swear....

When I was a kid, that was usually my experience with football players and jocks of all kinds. I think that unless you are on the receiving end of that kind of abuse, you might have a hard time believing that "good kids" would do that, but it hardly sounds new to me. Coaches and teachers almost always condoned it, too..

Infuriating, but not new.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Kids, I swear....

i had a business aquaintance that played line backer at FSU, then the Cleveland Browns, he thought he could get away with anything. thought his poo did'nt stink, tried to walk over people. i balked him, and he shoved me, had him arrested for assault. the judge red him the roit act, and 90 hours of community service. his still doing the same thing.

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: Kids, I swear....

A few years back we had a Scores Sports bar in town. A bouncer and former high school football star hit a customer outside the premisies and killed him. Got a 3 to 6 year sentence,,,,,,,,,,he was sooooo remorsefull they let him out after 6 months. Go Figure that one out........SS

Needless to say that is why I said we HAD a sports bar.

 

[Mark42]

Re: Kids, I swear....

I know when I was in high school and college that the ball players got away with doing stuff that non-jocks would be suspended for. But I thought that in the last few years that the schools were trying to get away from that by making the jocks get acceptable grades, complete assignments and knock off the bullying.

My wife got grief from another teacher when she had a star player suspended for harressing her. The coach talked to my wife and told her what a great kid he was, and how much he helps the other kids in practice, etc, but he didn't want any special treatment. She told him his kid wasn't getting any and she would not pull her complaint that got him suspended.

I used to get into more fights with the jocks in my gym class. Coach never reported me because he wanted me on one of his teams, but I refused to play. I had a job after school and worked on my "hot rod" (69' 327 Impala coupe). I didn't care about playing sports. I wanted to go cruising.....

 

[woodrat]

Re: Kids, I swear....

I went out for wrestling in 7th grade, but I wasn't a jock or an athletic type, just an average, slightly pudgy kid interested in wrestling from watching the olympics on TV. the coach and his little superstars ran me and another kid right out of there, the other players harassing us constantly, in and out of school, and the coach never letting us do anything but run laps, all through every practice.

Most of the worst bullies in school were jocks of some kind, and they always got away with it.

I never went out for a sport again at school, but I did play extra curricular soccer for a couple of seasons and liked doing that.

when I was a junior I was a big, pudgy guy and then people starting saying how I should go out for football, but I never went along with that. By that time, I was a gearhead too, and spent half my school day in auto shop or welding classes.

 

[sun_runner235]

Re: Kids, I swear....

Yeah well most of these "football" players can take a hard fall too. Just a couple of years ago, while in high school, my niece broke an offensive lineman's nose. He kept trying to copy from her paper in class and she refused to let him. He grapped her paper and ripped it up....some words were exchanged in he told her to "wait till we get outside". Well my niece being the strong willed one she is, walked out the door when the bell rang and waited for the "big stud" to come out. When he got outside, more words were exchanged, and then he made the fatal mistake of slapping her. That's when she reared back and popped him square in the nose and breaking it. A scuffle ensued, and as the big bad football player would get up to run away, she'd pounce back on him and continue to beat on him. Needless to say when it was all said and done, the boy's rep was shot, and my niece never got in trouble (the boys dad refused to press any charges since his bad boy son got beat up by a girl). All because the "better than you" football player was trying to bully someone in to letting him cheat. Let a few more kids in the world stand up to bullies like this and there will be a drastic change in how certain people act.

 

[57whitehouse]

Re: Kids, I swear....

I was a band geek. Played trombone(marched in the Rose Parade "81). I tried track for a few years and sucked at it.

I did "off season" just to work out a little. I was a skrony little thing. There was this bully that was ripped, sixpack abds and all. Spent a lot of time working out.

When we went to do bench press, I made him real mad when I benched 220lbs 3 times and he could only do it twice. Luckely he didn't beat me up for it

 

[SpinnerBait_Nut]

Re: Kids, I swear....

Was always a big boy, still am at right at 300#'s.
They always wanted me to play football, so I went out in my junior year and played a couple games till I saw one of the senior players try to pick some gal up and she told him she wasn't interested but he would not listen and when she started to walk away, he grabbed her, she hollered out and I went and ask him to leave her alone, but nope, he wouldn't, but he did.

 

[Mark42]

Re: Kids, I swear....

I think the thing that bothered me about what that kid said was he is only 9 or 10 years old, and already has that attitude! He's only a 3rd or 4th grade little kid for crying out loud! He's already shoving around 4 year olds! What's he going to be like when he's older?

 

[waterinthefuel]

Re: Kids, I swear....

Amber did the right thing, being the big sister and watching out for him. Just let the kid find a "football player" of the varsity or junior varsity size, and I'd be willing to bet that after a quick flight and hard landing he wouldn't be pushing anybody around anymore.

 

[valkyr]

Re: Kids, I swear....

My 10 year old plays football, and we see alot of that mentality...From parents down to the kids. However, I try to raise my kids where they show respect to everyone, other kids and especially adults. He knows things will go rough at home if he's picking on other kids or causing any trouble.

Now, if I could just get my two boys to treat each _other_ with respect, things would be good....