i have a complaint against the optimist club of arlington, texas. i am a parent of a boy who plays 3rd grade flag football/a wife of a man who head coaches a football team for the club. on saturday, october 7, 2006 we had an encounter with an administrator who was referring our game (for what reason, i don't know. he claims our head coach and the other teams head coach requested him-soo not true). my son, during a play, pushed another boy and therefore, we were given a flag. Fine. then, my husband, the head coach yelled to my son 'that's ok ****. keep you doing what your doing. play football. stay physical.' the ref throws another flag against the head coach. from that point on flag after flag after flag was thrown against our team. i heard from one parent on our team atleast 17 flags were thrown during the entire game which is approximately 45 minutes long. i therefore spoke up to the man and said if you have a problem with the coaches speak to them after the game, but don't penalize the team with flags on every single play. they are kids for god's sake. this man was extremely distraught. he was pacing with anger. it was all about power in his eyes. atleast that's my opinion. after all this was said and done two of our parents made remarks to him after the game like 'good game ref' obviously with sarcasm. no cursing was involved by the parents of any kind and no threats were made. he claims they used the 'f bomb.' as a result of this the two parents are suspended from next weeks game. our head coach is appealing the suspension. this is totally unacceptable. why are these parents being suspended for speaking what they feel? they are entitled to that right. they pay this organization for their child to play good, clean football, but they can't speak what's on their mind? bull. freedom of speech. this club claims it's all in the best interest of the children. bull. they don't give a hoot about the children or 17 flags wouldn't have been thrown during the game and two parents wouldn't be suspended from watching their child play football. this organization is a disgrace. it's nothing but politics. who's got the most money. who buys the most stock shares. now the 3rd grade administrator is saying we can't appeal the incident and to speak to another administrator if we have a problem with it. bull. that's like being accused of a crime and not getting a trial. bull. we are not going to stand for this crap. my husband has coached for this organization for 9 years now and we go through this crap every single year. all they do is lie and cheat. my point here is to let everyone know what a corrupt organization this is and that they are not in this for the children. they are in it for themselves. beware of the optimist club of arlington. they cheat and they lie. well they are not going to get the last word in this time. we're fed up. we will have the last word.