Bill Plaschke: Parents, protect your children
LOS ANGELES_When my oldest daughter was in eighth grade, she was picked for a traveling all-star soccer team, and I momentarily lost my mind.
I stopped being a parent and started being a fan. The coaches became deities, their orders became gospel, and my faith became blind.
The girls were traveling with only a couple of chaperones to a state tournament? Cool! They were staying in some unnamed hotel with who-knows-who in their rooms? Awesome! Late practices at weird locations with special tutoring? Go for it!
For a couple of weeks, my parenting instincts were sacrificed on the almighty altar of sports, and even though my daughter had a wonderful experience with kind and decent people, it could have been so much different.
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