I lived this for years. My daughter was exceptional at field hockey & track & ended up being recruited for both by colleges. She was in the local newspapers around 10 times in 3 years, with pictures of her & action & all. This made other parents very jealous. I had one older couple come on like Mr. Rodger's neighborhood, but I quickly realized they were just pumping me for information & plans. The father taped every game & always said he would give me tape. When the time came that a Div I college wanted tape, all the sudden all his tapes were shaky, no good & unsable. Right. I got tape from the school.
I have had these bitchy mothers actually come up to my face & say if my senior, who had earned her spot on the team was not on the field the entire time, their 10th grader would get more time on the field! Well, you KNOW I told them off! I have heard any number of ugly comments from overweight mothers in the stands that could not POSSIBLY run for an entire hour playing field hockey. But they sure do know the game & could criticize!
I was never so glad as when she graduated as the president of her class & spoke in front of the entire class & audience, & that she actually mentioned a food fight during her speech that they told her would result in the cutting of her mike if she did it :) My sister came from Az for it, & we were so proud!
Some people get some kind of vicarious thrill out of living through their kids or being able to brag about them. Then you have others like the Williams sisters, their dad knew it was a way out of poverty & groomed them. There ends up being a lot of money at stake in the end.
College is soooo expensive, for one thing. Div 1 can give you a full ride, Div 2 can give you a good package, & Div 3 will put together a good package if they need you & pretend it is not about the sports. But for Div 1 & 2, the sport becomes a job. There is a lot of travel involved & it is just a grind. A Div 1 would have given her a full ride in another state far from here. She did not want to go farther than 1 hour from home, & did not want it to become a job. she ended up going with Div 3 an hour from here.
We didn't choose sports, she found these things herself. We gave her dancing lessons in Jazz, because too many ballerinas end up with eating disorders, & I can't stand to watch bad tap dancing! She found the sports & the cheerleading & we just enjoyed them, in spite of thoe kinds of parents. Now she doesn't even play Field hockey anymore, she is on some intermediate teams with her boyfriend, badmitton & soft ball, but she is very involved in college student government. I don't miss those days at all, but at least for me they started in middle school, not at the age of 6!