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USA Today
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Are soccer parents ‘crazy'? Looking inward can help you beat the bad rap
Are soccer parents 'crazy'? Looking inward can help you beat the bad rap Show Caption Hide Caption Ben Shelton on his relationship with Trinity Rodman American tennis star Ben Shelton talks about the launch of his new relationship with USA soccer's Trinity Rodman. Sports Seriously The 'crazy sports parents,' Skye Eddy says, have ruined the experience for everyone. You know them. They live vicariously through their child. They have unrealistic expectations for him or her as an athlete. Or they are simply so unreasonable that there's little we can do to help them understand us better. 'As a coach, I've had an irrational parent on my team, and it has made my season miserable,' says Eddy, a former USWNT hopeful turned sports parent advocate. 'They've been taking way too much of my time and energy from the children by asking too many questions. And so as coaches, when we've been in those experiences, we say, 'OK, well, we're just gonna avoid all parents, because that was a really difficult season.' ' Even Eddy, a one-time defensive MVP of the NCAA women's soccer Final Four for George Mason who later coached on the staff at the University of Richmond, found herself labeled as one of them. She saw a veil come over the organization's executive director when she wanted to chat. To him, she was 'a crazy parent, complaining about my daughter … I'm like, 'Oh no, no, no, I'm just here to help,'" she says. Then the door shut. It was the ignition that launched her passion project, which today has about 43,000 members nationwide. It offers advice, training and encouragement for coaches and parents and youth sports leaders with a goal of helping us understand each other a little better. From Eddy's experience and research, the vast majority of parents are not 'crazy,' but level-headed folks who just stressed. 'Parenting is stressful these days, like society's stressful,' says Eddy, 53, a mother of two kids put through the athletic wringer. 'You add on a sports experience, and there is a lot.' Eddy spoke with us about how our soccer parenting, and sports parenting, can improve when we take a more introspective look at ourselves. From the discussion, USA TODAY Sports came with ways we can soothe our stress around our kids' games and improve the environment in which they are playing. Your child's sports journey is unique from your own. Maybe you need to care less about it. Eddy, a former goalie, reached as high as U.S. women's soccer player could go in the 1990s, barring making the national team. She played professionally in Italy. She pushes back at the notion that she was living out her own athletic experiences when her daughter, Cali, also became an elite soccer player in high school. 'I loved my athletic career,' Eddy says. 'I just didn't know what to say to her to help her, because our mindsets are so different. 'She was like, 'I want to play D-I, I want to play D-1,' and she was getting D-1 interest, but she wasn't pursuing it. She would not pick up a phone and call the coach. She was struggling with her self-esteem, her confidence around herself as an athlete, and so she really needed coaches calling her. She needed to be built up like that.' Eddy was seeing things from her own point of view, and what she would have done. In more recent years, she came across a term ('Decoupling') that would have helped her. It is associated with a romantic relationship, where two people pull back from their emotional connection but remain friends. It can also apply to teenagers growing into their own identities as athletes. 'It's sort of like not feeling things so deeply, letting our children dictate the path and us really being OK with it,' she says. 'That is the learning, the making the mistakes: Not calling the coach, not eating the right food, or going to the sleepover the night before and playing really badly. 'And I think that because as parents, it's so easy to feel like the stakes are so high, we try to interject too much.' But how do we redirect ourselves? The process can start with our actions on the sidelines, and often when our kids are very young. Your sideline behavior may be relieving your stress but stunting your child's progress. You may not admit you're stressed at your kids' games. But perhaps unintentionally, you are projecting it onto them. You cheer loudly. You jump up and down on the bleachers. You call to them. You interfere. 'That's stress,' Eddy says. Soccer Parenting's Sideline Project, which helps condition parents on game day, identifies three types of sideline behaviors: We're 'supportive' when we sit in attentive silence, cheer after positive outcomes for our child and his or her teammates, and perhaps even a good play from the other team. We're 'hostile' when we yell at referees, yell at our child, or even other players. (Keep reading.) We may not realize when we're being 'distracting.' This means we're offering specific instructions to a child. Go to the ball! Get rid of it! Run! 'Distracting behavior serves one primary purpose: To alleviate our stress as parents and coaches,' Eddy says in her Sideline Project online course. 'Players should be hearing their teammates and reasonable information from their coach, not their parents.' In the video, she demonstrates the Stroop Effect, named after an American psychologist who measured selective attention, processing speed and how interference affects performance. She has an interactive exercise using colors to illustrate how your children feel when they are concentrating in a game and adults interrupt them. I hitched when I did it. 'There's a lag,' Eddy says. 'This moment of interruption. That is how your child feels when they are playing, concentrating on the technical skill and what their decision is going to be, and they hear your voice telling them to shoot or pass." Instead, a good youth coach won't distract, but give a subtle cue – a nod, a whistle, a finger point or a closed fist - to trigger something they worked on in practice. 'Whatever it is that we're screaming, we're taking away their learning opportunity,' Eddy says. 'Do you realize I'm 13?' If we focus on being less distracting, the truly hostile parents stand out Cali was a tough defender. So tough, apparently, that she once came home from road club soccer tournament and reported: 'Another parent from the other team was sitting on the sideline, flicking me off. She just sat there, giving me the finger, staring right at me. 'I said, 'You do realize I'm 13 and you're a grown adult, right?'" she told her mom. Eddy estimates that 2% of the youth sports ecosystem, perhaps one parent per team, are these hostile ones. Many of us are merely distracting, a quality we can correct. U.S. soccer recently adopted a referee abuse prevention policy for youth and amateur soccer. Suspensions from two games to lifetime bans are now issued if you belittle, berate, insult, harass, touch or physically assault sports the abusers and get them thrown out. They are not part of our experience. I like to sit with the opposing team's fans when my sons are pitching in their baseball games. While I get a different video angle, I meet new people and feel and hear their emotions. Sometimes I just listen to them. It helps remind me why we are all in this. "We care so much about sport because of the connection," Eddy says. We can communicate easier with coaches if both sides respect boundaries Cali quit soccer for short time when she was eight. She was bored. Players were standing in lines. They did the same warmup at every practice. They weren't even given adequate instruction, Eddy thought. It was labeled as an advanced development program. When she asked other parents what they thought of the environment, they were fine with it. 'It struck me that until parents understand what a good learning environment looks like, to lead to player inspiration and joy and really giving kids a connection to sport, then we're really going to be missing a big part of the solution when it comes to improving youth sports,' she says. "The last thing we want to do is be perceived as one of these irrational parents, so we're not curious, we don't ask questions, we don't listen to our instincts, we don't follow up when we when we probably should, because we don't want to be perceived to care too much when there's a big difference between being irrational and caring." When she tried to speak up and was rebuffed, she became a youth coach. And was born. One of its foundational principles is to encourage coach and parent interaction, with clear and appropriate boundaries. Some suggested parameters a coach can use: The door is open to chat ... When your kid comes home from practice in a bad mood or doesn't want to go the next day; if he or she is having trouble playing a particular position; if you don't fully understand the scoring system or rules of the sport. The door is closed to chat ... If you have a complaint about another player that doesn't involve a safety issue; if you're wondering why the coach made a tactical decision; if you don't respect a coach's time and want to have a long conversation after practice. (You can schedule one instead.) 'We see the correlation between parents having more understanding and the children's experience getting better, and then therefore clubs and coaches having to get better," Eddy says. Coach Steve: Three steps to dealing with a 'bad' coach Be proactive, and intentional, about the way you handle stress Even when we feel we have things under control during games, sometimes we don't. Eddy laughs about once walking across the field with a plan in her head of what she would say to Cali. It didn't involve the game. Instead, in the heat of the moment, she said: 'You really need to work on your left foot.' "Where did that come from?" she says. "I had zero intention of saying that. It just poured right out of me." When I posed a question on social media about how we can be better soccer parents, Palmer Neill, of Dallas, told me: 'Basically, when you feel like doing something at a game or practice other than cheer or clap ... just don't do it. Let the coach be the coach and let the ref, ref. You don't have (a) role. Life gets a lot easier when you realize this." But we can also recognize that sometimes we slip, too, and take precautions. When Neill barks to his 10-year-old son to get onsides, or about an opponent's hand ball, he sits back in his chair and doesn't get up. He tries to stay seated during the game. "It seems to give me one extra second to think before I sit up (or stand-up) and yell," he says. Our own education and reflection, Eddy says, can relieve stress. Know the rules (and recent modifications to them). Know your kid's goals in sports. Be curious, not upset, when other kids have more skills than yours. Perhaps it's the Relative Age Effect, where young athletes born earliest among their age grouping are faster and stronger. Or that those kids move better because they play other sports or have more free play outside with friends and have better functional movement skills. We can put our own sports paths into better context, too. Coach Steve: MLS NEXT youth soccer rankings emphasize development over wins Remember they are still kids, even when they're creeping toward adulthood. There is satisfaction in watching who they are becoming. What did you do when you were eight? Twelve? Sixteen? When Eddy thinks about it, she liked to socialize at the local skating rink. She only trained twice a week with her soccer team. On off days, she rode to a local park and kicked the ball into a piece of plywood against a fence. She would dive at the rebounds. She used to wonder if Cali, who came back to soccer on her own terms, was getting enough reps on her own. 'What would I have been doing if I was in intense practices for an hour and a half four days a week, plus traveling to a lot in the games?' Eddy says. 'Would I still have been doing that? Likely not.' In today's world, it feels like kids sports matter a lot more. Maybe they do when we have more opportunities to play in front of college coaches. Maybe they don't when we play rec soccer, like Eddy's son, Davis, did, and parents screamed when he missed a shot. Davis, now a junior in college, had a better experience playing at a small high school. 'Having that outlet for sport was really important to his development, just as a person, and getting some space and, kind of way to blow off some steam as a student,' she says. Cali decided to work at a sleepaway camp in Maine during the summer before her junior year, a crucial one for college recruiting. She became a Division III All-American and now works for the Columbus Crew. 'I remember thinking, 'Oh my gosh, it's so hard for you,' but not saying that out loud," Eddy says. "That was a really important capstone to a really important thing in our life. Yet, she really missed a lot of opportunities, and there were consequences of that. We just need to make sure that it's our child's voice that we're hearing." We are when we let them lead the way, to choose friends over sports when they wish, and to have those sleepovers. Well, maybe not the sleepovers. Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons' baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here. Got a question for Coach Steve you want answered in a column? Email him at sborelli@
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Yahoo
Luigi Mangione Faces Potential Torturous Fate As Pam Bondi Seeks Death Penalty
President Trump's no-nonsense Attorney General Pam Bondi has made it clear she wants Luigi Mangione executed for allegedly committing murder — and, if she gets her way, the 26-year-old Ivy League grad faces a torturous fate, TMZ has learned. TMZ interviewed University of Richmond Law Professor Corinna Lain, who provided us with a road map of what Luigi can potentially expect if he is federally convicted of stalking and murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The federal prosecutor presents aggravating factors to the court, and the jury must unanimously agree on those factors before the judge decides whether to impose the death penalty. In federal cases, the death penalty typically results in lethal injection. Lain, an expert in capital punishment who wrote a book called, "Secrets of the Killing State, The Untold Story of Lethal Injection," tells TMZ ... Luigi would first be strapped to a gurney in a death chamber and an executioner will find a vein and insert a catheter. She says some inmates are pricked multiple times as the executor searches for a vein ... mainly because they are ailing drug users with bad veins ... but Luigi is young and spry and this doesn't seem to pose an issue. Once the catheter is inserted in the vein, Lain says non-medical prison guards carry out the execution with syringes from another room called the "execution anteroom." This room is next to the execution room and the two spaces are connected by a tube running through a hole in the separating wall ... the tube is used to carry drugs from one room to the next. On one end of the tube are syringes with the lethal drugs ... and the tube runs into the catheter needle in the prisoner's arm. Guards push down on the syringes, which deliver Pentobarbital -- a euthanasia drug -- to the prisoner's body. The drug immediately floods the heart and then the lungs. After a couple minutes, the prisoner falls unconscious, and it could take up to 18 minutes before they die. Even if the prisoner is unconscious and drugged to oblivion, Lain tells us the prisoner could still be feeling pain ... but can't respond to it. She says scientific evidence overwhelmingly indicates it's very likely the drugs cause extreme pain and needless suffering ... in other words, torturing people to death. Lain says lethal injection sometimes causes Acute Pulmonary Edema, which occurs when fluid seeps into the lungs within seconds and minutes ... making it hard to breathe ... this is life-threatening. Another issue ... the non-medical prison guards carrying out the execution. Lain says the guards are not medically trained and when they administer the drugs by pushing down on the syringe they can sometimes push too hard, delivering too much of the substance too fast, thus blowing the vein and causing it to collapse. If this happens, she says the drug spills into the surrounding tissue ... creating a big problem. In one case, Lain says the prisoner woke up in the midst of his own execution in pain ... and in another, she says the prisoner had huge chemical burns on both arms with his skin sloughing off. This can't help Luigi sleep at night. 🤷🏽♂️
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Former US attorney for Eastern District of Virginia found dead
Jessica Aber, the former US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was found dead at a residence on Saturday morning. Police in Alexandria, Virginia, responded to reports of an unresponsive woman at about 09:18 local time (13:00 GMT) , the department said in a statement. Officers then located a deceased woman, who they later identified as Ms Aber, police said. Ms Aber, 43, was appointed by former President Joe Biden in 2021. She stepped down in January when Donald Trump took office. Police said an investigation into her death was underway and Virginia's chief medical examiner will determine the cause. A friend of the family told the BBC's US partner CBS News that Aber's death is "believed to be the result of a longstanding medical issue". Ms Aber graduated from the University of Richmond in Virginia in 2003, before attending William & Mary Law School in Williamsburg, Virginia. She clerked for then-Magistrate Judge M. Hannah Lauck of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia from 2006 to 2007. She started in the Eastern District of Virginia in 2009 as an assistant US attorney, and worked on cases involving financial fraud, public corruption, and child exploitation cases, according to the Department of Justice website. In 2016, Ms Aber was promoted to the district's deputy chief of the criminal division. Biden nominated her to lead the Eastern District of Virginia in August 2021, and she was unanimously confirmed by the US Senate. As the district's top prosecutor, she oversaw a staff about 300 prosecutors, litigators and support staff. She stepped down from the position in early 2025 when Donald Trump took office. US attorneys are appointed by the president. It is common for sitting US attorneys to step down when new presidential administration arrives, or for new presidents to later choose a new top prosecutor. In statement, her successor, interim US Attorney Erik S Siebert said the office was "heartbroken beyond words". "She was unmatched as a leader, mentor, and prosecutor, and she is simply irreplaceable as a human being," said Mr Siebert, who joined the division in 2010, the year after Ms Aber. US Senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, called Ms Aber an "exceptional public servant who dedicated her life to serving her fellow Virginians".
BBC News
23-03-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Ex-US attorney for Eastern District of Virginia Jessica Aber found dead
Jessica Aber, the former US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was found dead at a residence on Sunday in Alexandria, Virginia, responded to reports of an unresponsive woman at about 09:18 local time (13:00 GMT), the department said in a statement. Officers then located a deceased woman, who they later identified as Ms Aber, police said. Ms Aber, 43, was appointed by former President Joe Biden in 2021. She stepped down in January when Donald Trump took office. Police said an investigation into her death was underway and Virginia's chief medical examiner will determine the Aber received her law degree from the University of Richmond in Virginia, and clerked for then-Magistrate Judge M. Hannah Lauck of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia from 2006 to started in the Eastern District of Virginia in 2009 as an assistant US attorney, and worked on cases involving financial fraud, public corruption, and child exploitation cases, according to the Department of Justice 2016, Ms Aber was promoted to the district's deputy chief of the criminal nominated her to lead the Eastern District of Virginia in August 2021, and she was unanimously confirmed by the US the district's top prosecutor, she oversaw a staff about 300 prosecutors, litigators and support stepped down from the position in early 2025 when Donald Trump took attorneys are appointed by the president. It is common for sitting US attorneys to step down when new presidential administration arrives, or for new presidents to later choose a new top statement, her successor, interim US Attorney Erik S Siebert said the office was "heartbroken beyond words"."She was unmatched as a leader, mentor, and prosecutor, and she is simply irreplaceable as a human being," said Mr Siebert, who joined the division in 2010, the year after Ms Senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, called Ms Aber an "exceptional public servant who dedicated her life to serving her fellow Virginians".
CNN
12-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Four friends went on vacation. Then they recreated a favorite photo from 35 years ago
Jennifer Candotti was cleaning out her closet when she stumbled across a dress she hadn't worn in decades. Pink and white floral print, cotton, summery — this was Candotti's favourite dress back in the late 1980s, when she was a college student at the University of Richmond in Virginia. American Candotti now lives with her husband in Switzerland, and before they moved abroad, she donated a bunch of old clothes. But she couldn't part with the floral dress. It was imbued with so many memories. 'It's moved with me everywhere,' Candotti tells CNN Travel today. 'I don't have my wedding dress, but I still have that dress.' When Candotti rediscovered the '80s garment last year, she was immediately transported back to her college years. And as always when Candotti thought of college, she thought of her best friends, who she met the day she moved into Lora Robins Residence Hall in late 1986: Robin Clark, Robin Garrison and Angie Carrano. 'These are the girls I can count on, who know me best and who, when we are together, feel as though we are 18 again,' says Candotti. In Candotti's favorite college photo with Clark, Garrison and Carrano, taken in 1989, she's wearing that floral dress. The foursome were at a tailgate at one of the college football games ('We would tailgate before football games, but never go into the football game,' recalls Clark, laughing). They're each smiling into the camera, wearing sunglasses, holding blue solo cups filled with beer. It's over 35 years since the photo was taken, but the photo remains symbolic of Candotti, Clark, Garrison and Carrano's lasting, loyal friendship. They've each got it framed in their homes. It's their WhatsApp group chat photo. And when Carrano got married, she mailed the photo to the other three, asking them to be her bridesmaids. 'It's stuck around,' says Clark of the photo. 'It's stood the test of time.' The friendship has stood the test of time, too. When Candotti fished out the dress from the back of her closet, the four friends, now in their 50s, were about to go on vacation to Le Marche, in eastern Italy. Candotti texted a photo of the dress to her friends and spontaneously packed it in her suitcase. And then a plan started forming in the group chat: 'We decided to recreate the photo on our Italian adventure,' says Candotti. One of Candotti, Clark, Garrison and Carrano's favorite things about vacationing together is 'being together under one roof as if it were our freshman year at college,' as Candotti puts it. They're all parents, all juggling busy jobs, responsibilities. When they're apart, they video call, text each other book recommendations, recipes and advice for navigating menopause. But it's these annual vacations that really remind them of the importance of their decades-long friendship in shaping the people they are today. 'Now that we are scattered between the US and Europe, we schedule a trip at least once a year to be together and reconnect,' explains Candotti. 'Edinburgh was our last adventure in 2023. For 2024, we decided to travel to Italy.' This Italy adventure was perhaps their dreamiest trip yet. 'We spent the week learning how to make pasta, tasting olive oil, and traveling to the picturesque nearby hillside towns,' recalls Candotti. But for all the women, the highlight (other than the 'afternoon Aperol spritzes') was recreating that beloved college photo. Candotti wore the original floral dress, of course. Meanwhile Clark, Garrison and Carrano gamely dug out clothes that resembled their outfits in 1989. Garrison sourced the blue solo cups — which aren't really a thing in Europe — packing them in her bag and bringing them to Italy, where they were filled with fine Italian wine rather than cheap college beer ('We've upgraded,' says Robin, laughing). Candotti's husband, who also joined the trip, took the photo, and helped the women recapture their poses. It didn't take them too long to nail it. And, in between, there was lots of laughter. Later, looking at the photos side by side, the four friends felt happy — and a little bit emotional. 'They say a picture paints a thousand words. And I think it's so true looking at that picture,' says Clark, who says she was struck by everything the four friends have gone through together in those 35 years. 'There's so much in that photo that somebody else just looking at it doesn't see, but we can see and feel it,' Clark says. 'And I think that's what's so special about it.' Carrano agrees: 'There was so much life to get from that first picture to that to that second picture.' For Carrano, the friendship is underlined by the idea that they're each other's 'anchors.' 'We go off and do our thing, but you can always pull yourself back to that anchor and find yourself,' she says. Garrison agrees, counting herself so 'lucky to have such wonderful friends,' who never judge, only ever support. 'We've all had tragedies that have happened in our lives,' adds Candotti. 'And each time, these are the girls that are with me, that pick up the phone and say, 'Are you okay? What can I do?' I know they would do anything.' While all four women have gone through changes and ups and downs over the past 35 years (from 'old and new boyfriends' in their early twenties to 'empty nest, menopause, taking care of our parents' in latter years) their friendship remains a constant, an 'anchor.' 'Whenever we are together, we are astonished when calculating the number of years we have been friends,' says Candotti. 'Through relationships, careers, marriages, children, and deaths, we have seen each other through it all.' When Candotti returned from Italy, she hung the floral dress back in her closet, smiling. Then she framed the recreated photo, putting it in pride of place next to the 1989 shot in her home. 'In the end, we and the photo turned out all right,' says Candotti. 'Thankful for my lifelong friends.'
