Ahh, remember the days when the parents of child athletes were
crazy but still relatively harmless?
I mean, who could forget the memorable Almonte family who forged
son Danny’s birth certificate so he would be eligible to play
in the 2001 Little League World Series? Sure, this may have been
stupid and costly, but not murderous.
No, we’ve left that honor to our friends ““ the
French.
Last week, Christophe Fauviau was arrested on suspicion of
administering the anti-anxiety drug Temesta to at least three
players who faced his 15-year-old son Maxime at local tennis
tournaments. One of the victims died in a car crash as result of
the residual effects of the drug.
The story began in late June when Maxime’s opponent in the
semifinal of a competition complained that he saw Fauviau tampering
with his water bottle before the match. He did not drink the water,
but lost the match anyway and kept the bottle. The next day, in the
final, the same player says he noticed Fauviau senior once again
fiddling with the player’s water.
Then, half-way through the match, Maxime’s opponent fell ill and
was taken to hospital, where he spent the next two days. When he
came out, the two players gave a statement to local police and
handed over the suspected bottle for analysis.
The controversy might have ended there, except that a few days
later Alexandre Lagardere lost to Maxime in the quarterfinal of
another local tournament. Feeling drowsy and unwell, he slept for
two hours at a friend’s house, then left for home. On the
way, he crashed his car and was killed.
Hideous as this story is, it takes us back a decade to Texas and
Wanda Holloway. Remember the “˜”˜cheerleader
mom” who was charged in 1991 with trying to hire a hit
man to kill the mother of her 13-year-old daughter’s cheerleading
rival? She thought the grieving daughter would be too distraught
and quit, opening a spot for her own daughter.
Good lord, whatever happened to the simple
“my-child-is-better-than-your-child” or
“give-my-kid-more-playing-time” arguments? We can deal
with the classic
“I-couldn’t-play-sports-so-I’ll-force-my-kids-to-live-the-life-I-never-had”
parents.
But murder? Drugging?
Just how far will parents go? What’s next, parents hiring
terrorists? Are Little League games going to start resembling the
chaos of airport security? I can picture it now “¦ two-hour
lines to go through the X-ray machine at the entrance of the park,
randomly chosen equipment bag searches.
These hideous incidents remind us to put sports into
perspective.
Sure, I’ll admit that, as a Kings fan, a little part of me
cheered when Kobe Bryant suffered from food poisoning in the
Western Conference finals two years ago, and I am sure most of us
would love to see something bad happen to the Yankees. Professional
sports simply lead to intense emotion.
But there it’s a profession ““ not children’s
tennis, cheerleading or Little League.
If parents continue with the increasingly extreme behavior,
sports themselves will eventually deteriorate as innocence and fun
will be lost in a quest for titles, championships and wins.
I don’t know about everyone else, but the possibility of
having to take my shoes off while being X-rayed just to get into a
Little League game is not an appealing idea.
When Jessica mentioned Kobe Bryant, you thought she was
talking about something else, didn’t you? E-mail her at
jbach@media.ucla.edu.