St. Louis American Sports Editor Earl Austin Jr., has just completed his second book, You Might Need a Jacket: Hilarious Stories of Wacky Sports Parents. It is dedicated to the world of wild and wacky “strait-jacket” sports parents. The book is published by Prioritybooks Publications. It contains more than 200 stories of the overzealous behavior displayed at youth and amateur sports events by parents and other loved ones. And they are all true. The book will be released later this summer, but each week, the St. Louis American will feature a story from the book for your enjoyment. Here is this week’s excerpt.
When you call a radio talk show every day to criticize your child’s coach, you might need a jacket.
During the early 1990’s, a parent of a player from one of the area’s top high school basketball programs used to call Richard “Onion” Horton’s radio talk show on WGNU every morning to rip his son’s high school coach on everything from his game strategy, substitution patterns, his son’s playing time, or anything else he could think of. His scathing criticisms knew no boundaries. The man was relentless in his verbal assaults on his son’s coach and on live radio.
For more information on the book, check out Earl’s website at www.earlaustinjr.com. If you have any strait-jacket parent stories to share with Earl Austin Jr., you can contact him at eaustin@stlamerican.com