In an all-too-relatable rant, Chris and Kellie Gimenez shared their “non-negotiable rules as sports parents,” and social media users raced to comment with their own woes about cleats, jock straps and turf pellets. And don’t even get them started on travel sports.
As much as the parents love to complain about the hassle, they not-so-secretly love it.
“It’s a lot but it’s so fun,” Kellie tells TODAY.com. Her husband adds, “We kind of thrive in it.”
In the Gimenez household, son Jace, 13, plays football, basketball and baseball. Son Jaxon, 10, plays flag football, baseball, and wants to add basketball. Daughter Joelle, 8, plays basketball and softball. They have sports practices at least six days a week (sometimes seven) that are detailed and color coded on a massive whiteboard maintained by Kellie.
Unsurprisingly, both Chris and Kellie are accomplished athletes. Chris played professional baseball and Kellie played Division 1 volleyball. So they are familiar with team sports … but now they’re experiencing them from the parent point-of-view.
For example, here’s the first “rule” that Kellie listed in the video: “Make sure you hide your cleats in the hardest location to find, but then don’t tell anybody you can’t find them until we’re walking out the door.” (They recently found a single cleat in their bathtub.)
Here are the rest of the “rules” the Gimenez family, who live in Reno, Nevada, lives by:
- “You are not allowed to come home with a water bottle. You leave it at any field we’re at.”
- “As soon as we’re done playing said sport, immediately once we’ve gotten in the car, take all of your shoes off. When in doubt, air it out.”
- “Make sure when you take your uniform off — cup, socks, all of it — I want it to be in a ball.”
- “You are going to have to take your cup out. You have to put it in a very visible place, like the table.”
- “After the game, when we ask you to take a shower, you immediately reply with, ‘Why? I didn’t sweat.'”
Viewers chimed in with hilarious additions like:
- “Outgrow your gear and do not tell anyone. Put it on and complain it is too tight on game day.”
- “Whenever you have white baseball pants on, make sure to cover every inch of them with orange clay dirt and/or grass. I like a good challenge on laundry day.”
- “Only sign up for sports that have expensive equipment. Then next year you must switch to a new sport that does not allow you to use any previously purchased equipment.”
- “When you take off your cleats, baseball or football, make sure you shake them out all over the car or house so we get to enjoy those rubber pellets from the turf forever. I never want to not see those all over.”
Chris and Kellie say that the major difference between playing sports when they grew up and playing sports now is the extended time of each season.
“Travel sports are so prevalent. They go year-round,” says Chris. “It’s always baseball season, or it’s always basketball season or soccer season.” These days, you can’t put any equipment away because it’s still in use. “I played major league baseball for 16 years, and (travel sports) is more of a commitment than being a professional player.”
When Chris helps coach his kids’ teams, does he break any of his own rules?
Kellie laughed, “You already know the answer to that one.”