I’m trying to get some feedback on allowing parents in the playing area at a high school event. I haven’t run a scholastic event in several years and previously I never had a problem. The difference this time is there will be $14,000 worth of university scholarships at stake, not just trophies and titles. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated !
First, full disclosure: I’m a chess parent myself & chess coach, not a TD, and I greatly enjoy watching my kid play. I also take great pains not to do anything that could be misinterpreted as influencing his games or otherwise distracting anyone (signalling, staring at his opponent, etc).
The accepted wisdom on this subject is that parents will attempt to intimidate their children’s opponents, and should therefore be banned from the playing area (reference the famous scene in “Searching for Bobby Fischer” where the TD locks all the parents in the locker room). Since you’re dealing with high schoolers, the issue of adult intimidation is probably less important.
In the 70+ tournaments I’ve attended over the last three years, the worst behavior on the part of parents or other spectators I’ve witnessed is simply talking within earshot of the players (plus the rare cell phone mishap). This problem becomes particularly acute when no skittles area is provided, and spectators are forced to loiter near the players (echoing environments like gymnasiums are the worst).
My suggestions are:
- Talk to other scholastic TDs in your area to see whether spectators are usually well-behaved or not.
- Make sure that a skittles area is provided that non-players can relax in.
- Depending on the answer to #1, consider allowing spectators initially, but reserve the right to ban them from the play area if they begin to distract the players.
I also am not a TD, just an assistant coach/parent. Here are a couple of things that I have found successful around here:
Having a line or natural barrier around the outside of the room. Parents must stay on their side of the line.
Have announcements before hand giving the rules to spectators, and make sure that floor TD’s are very willing to back a parent off.
Maybe do something, like an adult tourney, to keep the parents busy.
The problem I have with scholastic tournaments … the players or the parents that have little understand about the USCF. Economy scholastic players have very little understand about the USCF, as the parents and the child do not get ‘Chess Life’.
Parents and the players that were in the K-3 sections when they were in that age group. Will give the organizer/director problems when their child is now in the 4th grade. Starting to feel it is a bad idea to have non-USCF members get USCF ratings. As the parents feel they should get the same treatment when their child is past the K-3 age group.
Even if the child is in the K-3 age group, you will find parents very upset asking for their childs name, mailing adress, birthdate, … just to issue a non-USCF membership number. The parents do not understand the USCF … as they feel asking for that information is like asking for their credit card number.
Coach/TD Opinion.
Keeps parents out of the playing area. I firmly believe that the chess parents are good people and are not trying to cheat, however I’ve rarely meet a parent that doesn’t want to watch their child’s game like a hawk and “protect” them from possible cheaters. It’s always the “other parent” that is a problem.
Most problems that occur as a result accusations from other parents. Rarely is it a problem of a player and the parents. The easiest solution is to simply prevent the “other parents” from being in the playing area.
Please note that playing area is different than playing hall/room. You can allow them to be in the room, but not walking through the aisles. I think this is usually the best comprimise.
Enrique
I definitely prefer a floor closed to spectators. When that is not possible then a DISTANT perimeter can be dealt with.
The playing site may not have the space in the playing room to allow spectators.
To contradict what I’m going to say later, there has been one type of situation where having parents on the perimeter has come in handy 2 or 3 times in the past couple of decades. That is when the other TDs are currently involved in resolving questions, I am scanning one area of the room, and a hand is raised behind me. Parents have signalled to me that a hand is up and thus allowed me to respond 5-15 seconds faster than I might have otherwise.
In this area, high school fixed-board team-tournaments commonly have a semi-open floor (some restrictions on where players and coaches can stand when looking at a teammate’s game). That has worked fairly well here, but the ones I’ve done have only awarded trophies and medals. Since many of the high school players either drive themselves or come on the school’s team bus, the ratio of parents to players is much, much lower than at K-8 tournaments.
The elementary and middle school tournaments here have had a lot fewer problems since we began excluding spectators (including coaches and players who have already finished their games).
If you have a line, you will most likely have to be very firm about keeping the parents on one side of the line. A 6-inch encroachment that is overlooked slowly grows until the spectators are next to the boards. At national tournaments I’ve waved back spectators that were slightly encroaching, and if they complain about the silliness of moving back six inches then I tell them that it is related to the old parable about the camel’s nose in the tent. (To summarize, the camel started warming his cold nose by sticking the tip of it into a tent occupied by a sympathetic person, and slowly moved more and more of his body into the tent until he crowded out the original occupant). Either people know the parable, or accept that there actually is a legitiamte reason for having to move back, or simply don’t want to argue with me, because I’ve never had to actually repeat the parable for them.
Even if they are not near the boards, having parents in the room has resulted in a very, very small percentage of parents having made a number of accusations of signalling and of attempts to intimidate. I’ve heard 800-900 strength parents accused of giving moves to their 1700-rated kid. There have been non-playing parents accused of giving moves. Once a kid lost a game and the complainer said that the parent signalled the kid to lose to avert suspicion.
Also, parents in the playing room have “definitely” seen things like a hovering hand make a touch move violation in a game 80 feet away from them.
A clear majority of the K-8 parents in this area greatly prefer to see parents excluded from the playing room.
I’m firmly in the ‘closed floor’ camp these days. The players tend to prefer it that way, too, even the young ones.
I am a firm believer in letting the parents in the room when there’s enough room.
But DEFINATELY keep them away from the tables and NEVER allow them between the seated rows of players. I’ll even admit that keeping them back from the tables is more important than allowing them into the room.
For K-8, keep parents and coaches out of the competition room, PLEASE. It’s such a distraction, and it does absolutely no good.
I have seen instances where all a parent did was stand behind their own first grader and look at the opposing first grader. Well, shoot, how do you it feels when you’re six years old and your opponent’s dad is standing there looking at you the whole time?
IMNSHO, the spectator barriers don’t work, either. If you’re close enough to see the pieces, you’re close enough to distract the players.
If the kid needs you there then he/she is not ready for tournament competition. Period.
If you absolutely must know what happened during your kid’s game, teach them how to do algebraic chess notation, and go over their games afterwards.
We had one little guy who burst into tears in the competition room before the first round of his first tourney. He continued to cry and cling to his dad after we were supposed to leave. Finally, his dad said–gently but firmly-- “I can’t stay with you here. If you want to leave with me, that’s OK, but if you want to play this round, you have to do it here on your own.” Kid decided to stay, dad left, kid got into his game, forgot his tears, won and has been fine ever since.
I’ll go even farther. Don’t hang out right outside of the doors of the competition area. Win or lose, your kid needs a chance to regain his/her composure and decide how he/she feels about the game before you get all over them. Give them that minute or two to take a breath as they walk back to the skittles area.
I can’t vouch for high school. That may be more like an adult tournament, where spectating is a more common practice, the competitors are more mature, and the absolute numbers of people is smaller.
I think the TDs for the national scholastics have had more spectator-related problems in the HS sections than in the lower grades.
I agree completely with regards to letting the kids work out their emotions on their games. I was at a national scholastic once and the parent of a young player was critiquing his son’s game to the point where the kid was in tears.
Parents like that take the fun out of chess.
Would it be ideal … if the USCF sends out a letter to current, and then new USCF members under the age of 14. Address to the parent(s) of so and so … with information about USCF tournaments.
Finding that most parents … that never sent their child to a tournament before, have little understanding of a tournament. The scholastic players want to play chess, the complex issues of rated and non-rated; the complex issues of a USCF membership … or as a non - USCF member for the K-3 section.
The economy scholastic will have to say is a bad idea, … as it gives nothing for the player or the parents with information about the USCF. Even worse … the non - USCF memberships for the K-3 sections. What does the USCF tell the player or the parent(s) of the non - USCF members – nothing of major importance. The problem for the non - USCF memberships for the K-3 age group … is there any letters to tell the player or the parent(s) what will happen when the child gets into the 4th grade?
Sending letters to the 40,000 scholastic/youth members and/or their parents tend to get rather expensive.
E-mail is much cheaper, but every time we’ve sent out a large e-mail blast we’ve gotten blacklisted by AOL as a spammer, even though we’re supposed to be on their whitelist.
Isn’t that what Chess Life (or School Mates) is for?
Economy scholastics do not get ‘Chess Life’; non - USCF members in the K-3 section do not get ‘Chess Life’. If the USCF will not take a leadership role with this issue, why should the organizer, director and the scholastic coach have to take command. It does leave a void of leadership on the part of the federation, when it could help to solve the minor problems before the start of a scholastic tournament, with just a simple letter.
I’m not sure I would argue that parents should be able to closely watch the game, but I think some sensitivity is in order.
Honestly, some of you guys sound like jerks with your comments about parents. I’ll repeat what I said earlier – what other organized activity for school children (name any other sport or competition) BANS PARENTS FROM THE ROOM! People would be rioting if you did this in a more popular activity like soccer. FIND A WAY TO ACCOMODATE PARENTS OR YOU WILL HURT THE POPULARITY OF CHESS COMPETITION. Sometimes you won’t be able to accomodate parents, but most of you sound like you’re opposed to even trying!
I’ve had a friend of mine that’s constantly run into problems because he wants to video tape his child’s games. NOT the players, just the game. Even when he is able to set up the camera completely out of the way (sometimes even after he has made prior arrangements with the TD/organizer, and received prior permission) he has problems. “Just teach the kid to keep score” isn’t a solution that will work in his case, his child is a talented Kindergarden student that can’t write well enough to keep score yet. Maybe after he’s in first grade, but not now. I realize that there will be many times that it will not be practical to allow a video camera to be set up, but in several cases when it wouldn’t have interfered, he’s still run into problems. What other school activity or competition bans cameras?!
You don’t like dealing with parents complaints – I understand that. You don’t want parents to intimidate the opponents or help thier child win – OK that makes sense. But its a big leap from that to: You can’t see your child compete. You can’t have pictures or video of your child competing. You can’t even wait outside the door while your child competes. Keep in mind that it’s the parents that bring the child to the tournament. How many parents have you turned away from chess? People manage to handle parents at soccer games, little league, spelling bees, school plays, … MAKE AN EFFORT! If you hate parents that much, maybe you shouldn’t be doing scholastics.
BTW, my friend that I mentioned above has also been told he can’t use a DGT sensor board to record his child’s moves. How could this have possibly hurt anything?
Most sports with dedicated playing areas have predefined places for spectators where they are OUT OF THE FIELD OF PLAY!
Try asking your Little League coach to let you stand behind your son when he’s pitching.
I’d need more information to judge. For example, even if the DGT board counted as “standard equipment” (not clear to me), Black would have the choice. Also, use of a sensory board cannot excuse a player from keeping score.
Mike Nolan already mentioned that many sports prohibit parents from the field of play. In Little League play is often temprorarily stopped if there are non-participants walking through the outfield.
The size of the playing area has a much higher player density in chess than in baseball. For that matter, the size of the spectating area generally has more space per spectator at a ball game than could even be made available at a chess tournament.
Also consider just the number of spectators at one time. A normal Little League game may have 15 players per team, resulting in 30 kids and 20-70 spectators, some of whom are coaching the teams. Many Little League games have a single umpire for those 30 kids, of whom no more than 13 are actually playing at a time. The spectators may include 6-10 people that are coaching or scoring (the equivalent of proctors at a chess tournament). There are easily recognizable breaks in play between pitches, between batters and between halves of innings.
A chess tournament in our area may have 200-500 kids playing (possibly all at the same time), with 150-700 parents. We may use 2-7 directors and about the same number of proctors to oversee all of the games and the back room. Once a round starts, play continues constantly until the round finishes.
If you have spectating at the perimeter of the playing area you generally have to count on many of the parents not opting to watch or three simply is not enough space for all of the spectators.
As I said in an earlier post, the number of true problem spectators is only a small percentage, but the greater number of spectators means that the average chess tournament will have more problem spectators than the average Little League game. Fortunately I have only rarely seen parents almost come to blows.
In another thread I had said that I don’t have any problems listening to parents’ complaints, as that often indicates a parent that is interested. I take the opportunity to explain things to the parents, and have often found them at later tournaments heading of other complaints by repeating my explanations. I do have a problem with dealing with parent complaints at the same time that I should be overseeing games. Since we generally have closed floors for K-8 here, I generally don’t have that type of overlap (I can make sure there is enough coverage before leaving the playing area).
How simple it would be … if the parents of the scholastic players were established USCF members.
How I recall a tournament I was in a few weeks ago, around 30 or 40 players watched the final game of the round. One player lost on time … both players still play on … the other spent over two or three minutes before checking the clock. His time got down so bad … everyone was thinking the game could end in a draw: with both flags down. Everyone understood the rules … say nothing. Try that with 30 or 40 parents!
The point of the story … most parents of scholastic players do not play tournament chess. Most parents find it hard for them to understand, when their child is at the board, they have little control over the actions of their child. What their child will do when they do play chess … they have zero control over the moves.