Randy Carroll, the longtime coach at Gibbs, has had his share of run-ins with disgruntled parents.
He looks at the growing number of problems as an overall decline in order, restraint and self-control — with parents, not players.
“Some of it goes back to a lack of discipline,” he said. “It’s not what it should be in our society and that filters down into our kids and into our schools and athletic programs.
“I don’t think it’s anything that’s going to be solved overnight by the TSSAA, or me as a coach, or by anybody else. It’s going to have to be something that evolves over time and hopefully we’ll get back to some stronger moral values.”
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“As a coach, if you start letting those things happen then people line up to do it.” — Joel Helton, Central football coach
If a competition were held to find the toughest, most old-school coach in the PrepXtra area, Central’s Joel Helton would be a contender, definitely a medal winner.
He makes it clear to parents from day one he doesn’t want to hear their complaints.
“Early on, when I got here in 1984, we just said we’re not going to have that and we’re not going to listen to it,” Helton said. “We’ve lost some people who thought their kids could play better someplace else — more power to them and good luck.
“I had a parent come in one time and they said, ‘I want to tell you how to coach,’ and I said, ‘Well, don’t.’ And that was it. If you start listening to it, then it becomes a problem.”
Other coaches obviously have other approaches.
Most mentioned “open-door” policies as long as the discussion didn’t have anything to do with playing time.
“If you’re coming to me to question why your son isn’t playing more, one of two things has happened,” said Clark Duncan, former Powell football coach and current South-Doyle athletic director, “One, you don’t think I have the ability to make the right decisions, or, two, you think you can influence me to play your child and we’re not going to do that.
“If your child doesn’t understand, he can come to me. Most of the time he understands why he’s not playing. It’s the parents who don’t understand.”
That’s another fly in the ointment of this coach/parent/player dilemma.
Several coaches said parents have confronted them with the son standing close enough to hear.
“I think a lot of kids whose parents are so involved — it doesn’t apply to all of them — but when a kid’s parent is always there they’re almost embarrassed,” Lenoir City coach Nick White said “I think a lot of them wish their parents would just stay out of it.
“I’ve had a lot of cases where a kid has come up to me and apologized. They say, ‘sorry my dad acted that way.’ ”
Even parents can sense things have changed over the years.
Rick Irwin, the father of William Blount linebacker Will Irwin, has seen the good and the bad come and go during his son’s four years with the Governors.
“We’ve had some radical parents in the past and I think it’s just a sign of the times,” he said. “It’s almost like they’re trying to live through their kids and see them accomplish things they never could.
“Some of these parents that talk the loudest are the ones that do the least to help the program. It’s like anything else, there are just a few negative people out there wherever you go.”
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“I never used to have any parents come to me and complain about things. Now it’s a pretty regular deal.” — Coalfield coach Gary Kreis
Gary Kreis, like Helton of Central, would have to be considered one of the old guard of area coaches as he goes into his 31st season at Coalfield.
He thought he had seen it all — until recently.
“We’ve got an issue going on with the team right now that’s not a good thing,” he said, preferring to keep the nature of the problem off the record. “Parents are involved and spreading some ugly rumors.
“It’s a struggle to keep the parents out of it. It really is. I can remember back when I played, I don’t think you’d ever see a parent at practice.
“Now, every day, you’ve got several parents out there. I don’t care much for it and I don’t like them being there, but I don’t say anything.”
Halls football coach Kevin Julian has noticed the same trend.
“In the old days, momma drove you to youth-league practice, dropped you off and left,” Julian said. “Now every mom and dad drops their kid off at practice and stays the whole time.
“From the time a kid begins playing sports to the time he starts high school, his parents have watched them practice and seen how they’ve been coached and how they’ve developed every day.”
The result is more of a sense of entitlement from parents.
If their kid was a football stud in peewee and midget leagues, he’ll surely be a stud in high school. If he’s not, it must be the coach’s fault.
“There’s a big difference in the way parents

in the way parents are more assertive in their children’s sports backgrounds,” Julian said. “They automatically assume more responsibility once they get to high school.
“The difference in high school is that those kids are now under seven or eight professional coaches and you’re out of the youth-league ranks.”
Which brings us back to those nightly dining room chats between a few vocal parents and athletes.
Doubt can creep into a player’s mind quickly.
“Where it has changed is when I was playing parents didn’t go talk to the coach and parents didn’t gripe about the coach to their kids at home,” Maryville football coach George Quarles said. “There’s the problem now.

“I don’t get many complaints, but I would bet there are times when the parents are telling the kid, ‘the coach is not doing you right and you’re getting the bad end of the stick.’

“That puts the kid in a terrible spot. Do I listen to the coach or do I listen to my parents? That’s tough.”

It’s also the kind of thing that can eventually fracture a team.

“You can take a team that’s fairly talented, and you divide it,” Oak Ridge football coach Stanton Stevens said. “It only takes a couple of the right parents whose kids are the right kids at the right positions.

“If they have important positions on the team and their parent convinces them the leadership isn’t what it should be, or the coach isn’t using you in the right manner — then that can wreck a season really quick. And then it almost seems to validate what the parent was saying in the first place.

“We told you so. Look what happened. When in reality, if they had been better team players ”

Things may have worked out differently.

It’s almost like cloak-and-dagger stuff — sabotage from within.

It’s the kind of thing that can cost a coach his job or send him eagerly searching for other forms of employment.