georgepsmart
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2006
- Messages
- 1
Hello, This is my first time to post here. I read about this a little before I went, but boy, I had no idea what I was in for. I visited Disney during this Pop Warner cheerleader/football player business and I think my money would have been better spent planning my funeral instead. Disney is great, but this Pop Warner business is out of control. I wrote a very kind letter to Disney about it and a not so very kind letter to Pop Warner about it. I have pasted my email and the response I recieved below. I did cut some of it; the part where I included our personal experience. You get the jist of the letter with what I left in.
To make an impact, I urge all of you who had a negative encounter or experience to do the same. Good Luck.
My letter to Pop Warner:
Attn Pop Warner
To Whom This May Concern:
I am writing to you due to what I and many others have witnessed from your organization that I find not only disturbing, but also a slap in the face to your organization and how you are represented. That's the part you should really care about.
I visited Disney this past week and I must say that the kids you have there are the most hateful, disrespectful, unruly, inconsiderate and downright immature children/teenagers I have ever encountered. Sadly, your parents and chaparones with them are not any better.
And please do not only take my word for it, read for yourself.
(Here I pasted links to the disboards, but I cannot post them here)
For reasons that you can learn about yourself, your name is being slammed all over the Disney community, which is pretty wide-spread. It is also rapidly spreading in mine as I am warning everybody I know about the crappy kids you take to your competition. Sadly, this has been going on for years and I would be inclined to believe this is not the first you have heard of it.
Many of us who go to Disney easily spend $3000 - $8000 on a vacation; it is quite sad that your hateful little children and your hateful big children come there and ruin it for a lot of people. I truly hope that going forward, you will do something about this and either put a tighter leash on the monsters or have them stay somewhere else so that families on vacation can enjoy themselves and not have to be subjected to this.
Thank you,
George P Smart
Reply I recieved:
Mr. George P. Smart
December 13, 2006
Re: your e-mail of December 11, 2006
Dear Mr. Smart:
Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. Each year it's a huge challenge for our organization in conducting our National Cheer and Dance Championships and Pop Warner Super Bowl. This year we had over 17,000 people travel to Disney World to attend or participate from all over the United States , plus an additional 4,000-5,000 local folks.
We certainly do not condone the type of behavior you've described, either by our young participants or their coaches, chaperones or attending parents. While we can closely monitor and control their behavior at practices, meetings and competitions at Disney's Wide World of Sports, when those same people return to their hotels as paying guests, our means of control is greatly diminished.
Each day of our event, we meet with all the Disney hotel and Disney sports representatives to be able to follow up quickly on situations where we can. We have had situations in the past where Pop Warner volunteer coaches or volunteer administrators were sanctioned, and/or their local Pop Warner organization had sanctions imposed due to unacceptable behavior.
Having said that, when the person acting unacceptably is a non-coaching parent, we have very limited means of sanctioning that person. From the first mailings of the season all the way through our print material and coaching meetings at Disney World, we stress to the coaches their responsibility in controlling their own attitudes and behaviors as well as those of their athletes, athletes' parents and assistant coaches.
Additionally, each year we work closely with a broad variety of Disney Cast Members to implement improvements in encouraging good behavior and discouraging or punishing bad behavior.
Based solely on the number of people participating and attending our event, we know that a very small minority cause embarrassment for the vast majority. Please understand that we try hard to eliminate the poor actions of even that small minority. We appreciate your feedback, and will certainly consider it in planning for future events.
Sincerely,
Jon Butler
Executive Director
To make an impact, I urge all of you who had a negative encounter or experience to do the same. Good Luck.
My letter to Pop Warner:
Attn Pop Warner
To Whom This May Concern:
I am writing to you due to what I and many others have witnessed from your organization that I find not only disturbing, but also a slap in the face to your organization and how you are represented. That's the part you should really care about.
I visited Disney this past week and I must say that the kids you have there are the most hateful, disrespectful, unruly, inconsiderate and downright immature children/teenagers I have ever encountered. Sadly, your parents and chaparones with them are not any better.
And please do not only take my word for it, read for yourself.
(Here I pasted links to the disboards, but I cannot post them here)
For reasons that you can learn about yourself, your name is being slammed all over the Disney community, which is pretty wide-spread. It is also rapidly spreading in mine as I am warning everybody I know about the crappy kids you take to your competition. Sadly, this has been going on for years and I would be inclined to believe this is not the first you have heard of it.
Many of us who go to Disney easily spend $3000 - $8000 on a vacation; it is quite sad that your hateful little children and your hateful big children come there and ruin it for a lot of people. I truly hope that going forward, you will do something about this and either put a tighter leash on the monsters or have them stay somewhere else so that families on vacation can enjoy themselves and not have to be subjected to this.
Thank you,
George P Smart
Reply I recieved:
Mr. George P. Smart
December 13, 2006
Re: your e-mail of December 11, 2006
Dear Mr. Smart:
Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. Each year it's a huge challenge for our organization in conducting our National Cheer and Dance Championships and Pop Warner Super Bowl. This year we had over 17,000 people travel to Disney World to attend or participate from all over the United States , plus an additional 4,000-5,000 local folks.
We certainly do not condone the type of behavior you've described, either by our young participants or their coaches, chaperones or attending parents. While we can closely monitor and control their behavior at practices, meetings and competitions at Disney's Wide World of Sports, when those same people return to their hotels as paying guests, our means of control is greatly diminished.
Each day of our event, we meet with all the Disney hotel and Disney sports representatives to be able to follow up quickly on situations where we can. We have had situations in the past where Pop Warner volunteer coaches or volunteer administrators were sanctioned, and/or their local Pop Warner organization had sanctions imposed due to unacceptable behavior.
Having said that, when the person acting unacceptably is a non-coaching parent, we have very limited means of sanctioning that person. From the first mailings of the season all the way through our print material and coaching meetings at Disney World, we stress to the coaches their responsibility in controlling their own attitudes and behaviors as well as those of their athletes, athletes' parents and assistant coaches.
Additionally, each year we work closely with a broad variety of Disney Cast Members to implement improvements in encouraging good behavior and discouraging or punishing bad behavior.
Based solely on the number of people participating and attending our event, we know that a very small minority cause embarrassment for the vast majority. Please understand that we try hard to eliminate the poor actions of even that small minority. We appreciate your feedback, and will certainly consider it in planning for future events.
Sincerely,
Jon Butler
Executive Director
a reply
Could someone help me out?
Now, if everyone else would write a letter, maybe they could do something about it. 
