Article February 11, 2002 Issue

The player's viewpoint

Kim Shippey Sentinel staff

Zach Stillwell, baseball

Catcher Zach Stillwell pulls no punches when he gets started on parents who are overly zealous about school sports. "So often, the stories in the papers about aggressive parents on the sidelines of ice rinks, football fields, and basketball courts sound to me like a battle of the fathers' egos," he says. "And when the fighting or the jeering dies down, I bet those poor kids don't like sports any longer. I bet they hate it."

Zach told us he was so grateful that even when the competition between homework and sports was at its fiercest in his home, his parents never let him forget that win, lose, or draw, sports are a game. "A game!They really taught me that well. You play games for fun—even when other people may be taking it way too far."

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