I don’t do social media. But if I was a TikToker or liked to post on Instagram, I’d have been tempted to pull out my phone and hit “video” as I sat in the gym Saturday morning watching a basketball game.

The subject: A dad standing on the top bleacher throwing around his arms and yelling so intensely you might have assumed this was a high school playoff game with a shot at a sectional championship on the line.

But the game was at Emily Johns Elementary School in Plano. Between third- and fourth-grade girls. And the team this man was screaming for was a dozen or so points behind the opponents with just seconds left on the clock.

It was yet another example of parents behaving badly. Entertaining for some. Annoying for others. No doubt some were downright embarrassed. But at least it was not violent.

That incident reportedly happened with a whole new set of parents a few hours later in the same elementary school gymnasium.

I don’t have the details on what led up to the incident. But I do have a Plano police report from Police Chief Norman Addison indicating a 43-year-old Plano man has been charged with assault after a fight broke out at the game.

According to a press release, police responded to a disturbance where about “10 people were yelling and fighting.” During the incident, according to authorities, the man is accused of making a verbal threat to another adult, and after the person signed a complaint against him, the man was arrested and charged.

Addison told me the incident is still open pending further investigation and further charges could be filed after surveillance video is reviewed.

All told, it was an ugly incident for the Plano Youth Organization, a vibrant volunteer-based nonprofit which runs kids sports for the community because there is no park district. The night before, said President Justin Schimandle, the PYO held a successful Family Night, where more than 100 kids scrimmaged against their families.

“We provided food, had a packed gym and created a genuinely positive experience for our athletes and families,” he told me. “Unfortunately, when situations like this occur, it casts a shadow on events that are overwhelmingly positive and centered around kids.”

Schimandle is right. Out of control parents at kids’ sports events is in every community and is nothing new. In a survey by the National Association of Sports Officials, it was found that adults, mostly parents, are the primary source of poor sportsmanship, with 64% of referees reported having had to eject parents from games. Another research project showed that negative spectator behaviors like swearing or threatening language was observed at 68% of events.

While it’s hard to find data on arrests specifically tied to this sort of behavior, we see those headlines and online videos that show just how out of control parents can get. A couple weeks ago in Pennsylvania, for example, two adults were arrested after a heated verbal dispute is reported to have escalated into a physical fight at a basketball game – of second-graders. And it doesn’t seem to take much for fists to start flying. In December a coach and parent in Connecticut were arrested after a fight reportedly broke out over how much ice time a kid got.

Schimandle, who has coached at the high school level, and currently is an AAU basketball coach and referee, has multiple perspectives on “how challenging” youth sports has become. It’s an environment, he noted, that “in many cases has reached a breaking point.”

Psychologists and those who work in youth sports say part of the blame goes to competitions no longer seen as just recreation but auditions for elite travel teams and scholarships. Plus, the pandemic created lots of pent-up energy and frustration, they say, with parents struggling more these days with economic and emotional stressors.

I tend to think a major culprit is the decline in overall civility. Add that to the fact so many parents are overinvested in their kids and you get far too much emotion going into a simple game. Anyone who has spent lots of time sitting in bleachers or on sideline chairs has seen it and at times might even have been a little guilty themselves.

Plano, which is hosting its Big West Basketball/Plano Youth Playoffs and Championships on Sunday – it is expected to drawn up to 2,500 people from nine towns – gets the headline today. But as Schimandle noted, what happened last weekend is part of a broader societal issue that needs to be discussed.

According to the National Alliance for Youth Sports and the American Academy of Pediatrics, the best thing you can do as a parent to keep your kid in sports is to be supportive with low-pressure involvement. There’s a reason, after all, that announcers often remind spectators in a firm but calm way that these are not NBA or MLB or NHL players competing.

They are kids – impressionable kids who don’t want to be embarrassed by their parents or watch their dad or mom get hauled away in handcuffs. Encourage, don’t coach from the stands, the experts strongly advise. Don’t argue with officials or other spectators.

And for the love of the game – not to mention your kids – don’t relive it as if the future of the family depended on its outcome.

dcrosby@tribpub.com