I wish I had recorded the moment when my son’s middle-school soccer coach told parents to zip it. Don’t coach your child from the sidelines, she said in a pre-season meeting, don’t berate the referees. If you can’t behave, you’ll be asked to leave. I wish I could play that recording at next May’s drivers meeting before the Indianapolis 500. No more of the tantrums and petulance that we saw this year, as losing drivers berated their crews and other drivers and threatened fisticuffs. I would play it to our sorry cast of politicians, who clearly will stop at nothing to gain or retain public office. Corporate executives who sell out their employees to protect their own salaries also need to hear, “It’s not about you.”

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)