Your opinion: playing sports with critical people

sweetsarahj

Hi All. I'd like to hear other people's ideas and opinions on how I should handle this. I play Ultimate frisbee and really enjoy the game. However, I've been enjoying it less this year as there is someone on my team who is very competitive and critical of everyone. Every single time someone drops the disc, makes a bad pass or really any mistake on the field, this guy has a comment. It might just be a "Oh, C'mon!" or something to that effect, or sometimes it's very specific criticism- "Don't throw to me when I'm not already running" or "Don't do this or that" "You have to stay on this side of your mark" etc. My problem with this guy is that he makes mistakes too- even though he acts like he's an expert. Yesterday he gave a big speech about being patient on the field and then not 5 minutes later ignored his own advice and threw the disc away on a stupid play and with a bad throw. No one is criticizing him - I think because most of are there for fun (it's a recreational league with three divisions and we are intermediate).

Anyway, I REALLY wanted to get passive aggressive with him. I resent his 'correcting' me on every play and I REALLY REALLY wanted to point out to him that he ignored his own advice. I held my tongue because I'd rather be the bigger person. However, there is no way in hell that I will put up with his behaviour for the rest of the season.

Anyone have suggestions for how I can put this douche in his place while not seeming petty?

Thanks all.


PS- BTW, I do appreciate constructive critcism and welcome it from everyone else on the team, since they are nice and supportive about it. But this guy acts like he's never made a mistake in his life.

StarkLark

Ugh... definitely a tough situation. I've dealt with this in my co-ed soccer league and I can totally relate. In my case, we had a goalie who was incredibly talented but would constantly yell or berate other team members. It sucked because none of us were good goalkeepers so we didn't want to lose him, but he really brought the team down on a whole.

During one game he told me to "go sit down" - meaning that he thought I should have a substitute come in. Not only was it not his place to say anything like that (we all manage our own substitutions), but I had only been in the game for 2 minutes. I am certain it was because I was one of the lesser talented people on the team and he didn't like having me play defense in front of him. Keep in mind this is an adult co-ed league that everyone plays for fun and exercise.

I walked up to him and told him to mind his own business and that if he didn't like having me on the field he could get lost.

After that game I went up to our team "manager" (basically just the person who handles the money and sends out the game times/notifications) and explained that I didn't think the kid was helping us because of all of his negativity, despite how talented he was. The manager was very receptive to my input and after receiving the same feedback from several other team members (whom I encouraged to speak up after I found out they felt the same) the manager stopped calling the goalkeeper and he stopped coming to the games.

Good luck... I hope you can either get a consensus with your team/team leaders, or find another team to play with. I think I am going to look up UF teams where I live, I've always wanted to play!