Last week I wrote about the lack of respect shown to sporting officials and lamented that short of the players taking personal responsibility there was nothing really that could be done to restore the maxim that I grew up with (being that “the umpire is always right”) into the sports we all love to watch.

The principal feedback I received was whether I had considered the impact of parental behaviour at sport’s events on the future conduct of players.

To be fair I had considered that factor but really my initial view was that parental behaviour was perhaps not that big an issue in considering the totality of the “player respect” debate. Principally, in my mind, I had only considered my era of playing sport. Going back to those days I can not recall an event of “ugly parent” type behaviour at any of the sport that I had played. Equally, upon reflection it was not anything that I had ever paid attention to: I was too busy playing.

That being the case, I have had a read of recent reports of poor parental behaviour at sport and done a bit of a survey of mates of mine with kids who play sport. Ultimately, from both of these sources I have come to two conclusions:

1. Whilst there are a number of identifiable events of poor parental behaviour at sport, such behaviour does not appear to be happening at every game of sport played by children; and

2. It would be silliness to suggest that the behaviour of parents does not impact on the views of child / player with respect to the role that officials play in sport.

From a personal perspective I always had role models around me, in my parents and coaches, who hammered into me the maxim that the “umpire is always right”. I concede the obvious here that if the role models of players are not imparting and reinforcing that maxim then they are not likely to live by it like the sportsmen of my generation.

I wonder if that is to simplistic though: the people playing the sports we love are all adults. They all live by their own values systems and on the basis of their own judgments. It is trite to say, given what flows above, but at some point the excuses have to stop and personal responsibility for ones conduct must come to the fore.

I finish on a point that has been rattling around my head the last couple of days: if the boot was on the other foot would the players routinely abusing officials expect to be respected? I would suggest that they would and they would be lying if they posited otherwise. If that is the case, why does it seem to be foreign for those players to show some respect?