As teens my brother and I both refed youth soccer. The parents were the absolute worst part of the experience. One of them actually followed my brother back to his car after a game to yell at him more. It was so bad that the ref association took the guy to what I've always called "soccer court" (not sure what it actually was) to have him banned from coming back for the rest of the season. That was a U-12 girls rec game by the way.
That's the perfect age for shitty parents as that's the age where the "good" players have left rec and moved to club teams so that the ones that are left are the ones with bent out of shape parents for their kid not making a club team.
Not all parents are assholes, and as a solo coach, there's no way I could have survived without some of the parent's support with various aspects of managing a team. By the third or fourth season, the parents that had started with me would help wrangle some of the other parents.
> By the third or fourth season, the parents that had started with me would help wrangle some of the other parents
This is where we were with one of my kids' teams. Once they got older and split into the elite-national/regional club level (about U12), the parents were not healthy. Over time, the parents started to realize that their kid wasn't likely to play D1 college soccer, so there wasn't a point in being "those parents".
It also helped that a few of us that either coached, played, or ref'd would "help guide" the other parents. It is now to the point where I wouldn't want my kid to change teams because our parents are so awesome.
