I live in Texas and agree with you. I have a son who was a 3 year starter at a 2A school with one of the top programs in Texas and his senior year made all-state linebacker, all-district TE, and most of all Academic All American. I can say without sounding conceited with 145 tackles he was their defense and their key blocker on offense. He now plays in college.
Over his high school career I had one occasion to speak to the coach other than say "good game" and it was civil and problem solved. There are however parents at our school that are like this moron and act as if football is more important than anything else. They rant and rave at every game, all they talk about when you see them in town is the damn football team all year long. Some suck up to the coach like he's a rich uncle, others bad mouth him behind his back all over town. You see guys who played 20 years ago talking about their big game every damn Friday night.
I went to one booster meeting and declined to join. Needless to say I was not in the "in circle" of parents after that choice.
It is all about money and the false hopes of your kid making it to the "big time". It has become sad that a coach is only given a limited contract 1-3 years to win or he is looking for a new job. When we changed coaches 5 years ago the guy that should have gotten it was an assitant at the time, turned it down for fear he wouldn't win enough for the boosters and have to uproot his family after 15 years and move on.
The UIL runs high school sports in Texas. The controlling force is not a group of citizens or parents as you would think, it is a group of coaches and superintendent ( most were coaches ) so you can imagine any rules that come into play are made sure not to interfere with football. The academic rules are a farse they say they set aside study time for the boys and enforce the no-pass no-play rules strictly. BS.
My 14 year old came home with a 69 on a 3 week progress report ( he is an "A" student who decided not to do any homework in this class ) and the school suspended him from sports for 3 weeks, events only. I suspended him for 6 ( including practices ) until I saw a report card with the better grade. His coaches called me telling me I was too strict and it was hurting the track team that he could not run. This was JV track and only 2 events to boot. My logic was nip in the bud now and it won't happen again. He would come home and tell me that the coaches were giving him a hard time about letting the team down, blah, blah ... Needless to say, the coach, superintendent, and I had a meeting of the minds and the super agreed with me. Sadly unless my boy turns out to be as good as his older brother I probably doomed his career.
Texas sports are fun to watch, but they suck. Try having a cheerleader. It is not an official sport of the school so all costs are borne by parents. Boys get to prctice at school and the school has a coach. If your kid wants to be a cheerleader and you don't spend $200-$500 a month on cheer and tumbling class they don't have a prayer. Some girls are in these classes 3-4 days a week every night starting at the age of 6-7. It is worse than football.
Enough soapbox.
There are however parents at our school that are like this moron and act as if football is more important than anything else
There are parents like that EVERYWHERE. We lived in San Marino when our kids were in elementary school, near LA. There are parents like that everywhere and it isn't just football. They got ballistic over a low grade, or little Johnny being left out of the school play, etc.
It isn't just football. It is wierdo parents. It is trigger happy people. The shootings at other schools didn't have to do with sports.