By: Rod Smith, Local sports news personality
If you’ve watched my sports over the years, you probably know that I’m about as positive as anyone. I usually show the hits, not the errors, I talk about the recoveries, not the fumbles, the baskets, not the missed shots, the birdies, not bogies.

This message may surprise you.

I’ve kept something very private for several months.

I did this out of respect for some leaders, to give them a chance to admit that we can do so much better and that we need to support our coaches in both word and action. I did not want to overshadow the actual season and competition. I also wanted to make sure I had all of the facts.

Reputations are important, and some have tried to hurt my reputation and that of my daughter through this process. This is not a news story for me, I’ll admit, I’m biased, since this happened to my family.

The reason I need to share this, is because I think we have a problem with parents in sports.

Only a few parents.

For the most part, our parents are great supporters, I’ve made wonderful friends with hundreds of sports families around mid-Missouri, people who are encouraging to our student-athletes and supportive of our coaches and our schools.

Personally, I’ve been so blessed with great relationships with hundreds of coaches. Almost all of our local coaches are outstanding people, who are in this business for all the right reasons. They sacrifice a lot of family time to help lead our kids.

Most of them are teaching a lot more than sports. They teach life lessons to our children. They are role models, father figures, mother figures to many of our kids who desperately need strong examples. We are so lucky to have so many incredible people coaching our student-athletes.

Many of our coaches are teachers during the day, and work extremely long hours. They invest in our schools, our kids and our communities. They are not doing this for the big bucks. For every million-dollar college coach, there are thousands and thousands of high school coaches working for what works out to about minimum wage or less.

We are losing way too many good coaches.

I’ve seen some pretty ugly things this past school year. I’ve been told about many more. We need to support our coaches; we just can’t continue to let others tear them down.

We need school boards and administrators who will standup for our coaches and teachers, and protect them from those few abusive parents.
Instead of voicing support for that idea, I’ve been told by some school district officials and leaders, that I should not get involved.

I’ve decided not to be quiet.

While most parents get it, and do a great job, unfortunately the few that don’t get it, are winning.

We are losing too many good coaches and if we don’t turn things around, we’re going to lose many more.

Coaches need our respect and support.

As for our family’s personal story of a coach who is no longer coaching because of a destructive, bullying parent and lack of support from those in leadership, I plan to share that soon.

Written by Rod Smith FB on July 16th and published with permission.