NORVELT, Pa. — Rick Albright was headed to a youth football game one Tuesday this month, just as he had, again and again, for over two decades now, when his son, Rick Jr., called with disturbing news.

“Dad, you better hurry and come out to the field,” Rick Jr. said. “You won’t believe what I found.”

Albright’s son had already called the police. He told them that he had run over something strange in the parking lot of Hurst Field here, home to the Mount Pleasant Area Junior Football League. There, in the parking space normally reserved for his father, the league president for the past 20 years, were four bullets.

Each had the name of a league official on it, written in marker. One said, “Rick.”

On the other end of the line, Rick Albright absorbed what his son had just told him and then whispered, “Whoa.”

The game that day was called off. It had been a makeup of a game that had been postponed earlier in the season, after the league’s vice president had received a threatening letter. The vice president later quit the league. Better safe than sorry, everyone said.

Now Albright, a 62-year-old retired machinist, did the only thing he could think of to keep everyone safe: He canceled the season’s remaining four games. Two days after the bullets were found, he received a threatening letter at home.

“Why would someone do that?” he said last week of the threat. “How could they do that, take their anger to another level? I have no idea, I really don’t. This league is for the kids. Always has been. But someone did something crazy to ruin it. It’s devastated everybody.”

Nothing ruins youth sports like adults acting crazy. But, sadly, it’s nothing new: Somebody did not like the league’s rules or the officiating or the fact that his or her child was not a star, and so out came the threats, or the fists, or, in this extreme case, an entirely different level of crazy.

And now, in this rural area of rolling hills and farmland about 45 miles southeast of Pittsburgh — a hunting community where camouflage counts as casualwear and a barbershop keeps copies of magazines like Bowhunter and North American Whitetail in the waiting area — you have people running for cover.

The football community here is embarrassed about all this. The families, the players and the residents I spoke with last week are still asking how this could happen in a place where everybody knows everybody and where the league — run and coached by volunteers, and drawing boys and girls ages 6 to 14 from five area towns — has thrived since 1965. This year’s 50th anniversary program is nearly 130 pages, for goodness’ sake, and much of the league’s history can be read on a giant sign surrounded by a white picket fence in the stadium. On it are the names of past league champions and the names of every coach of every team that has been part of the program.

Yet just as in countless other American towns, overzealous parents have spoiled everything. Here in former coal country, a bad feeling has simmered throughout the league all season.

A number of families have been upset over the 200-pound weight limit, claiming that the league was not enforcing it and that smaller players were being injured by oversize ones. That came after a longtime league official was voted out of office this season, inflaming opinions and dividing the organization.

A few weeks ago, that tension became physical. After a game, one father slugged another in the parking lot, knocking him to the ground and starting a brawl. That was the first time this year that the state police sped to the stadium, where a sign warns, “No Harassing,” and also lists who is not to be harassed, including officials, league officers, players and cheerleaders.

The need to be that specific hints that maybe the spectators here had to be reined in long before this season.

Some history: Across the street from Hurst Field is a building with a glass case displaying a newspaper article from Oct. 3, 1953, when Hurst High School’s football team beat nearby Greensburg High. The win incited a riot. Fans tore down goal posts and set a fire behind the scoreboard. One woman was knocked unconscious.

The good old days? Compared with bullets in a parking lot and what the state police are calling terroristic threats, they were.

“This league is a big, big deal around here,” said Bob Gumbita, who played in the league and is now an assistant principal of the Mount Pleasant Area Junior High School and a coach of the high school team. “When I played as a kid, I’d walk through towns around here and people would know me, tell me my stats, tell me their team’s stats. They’d know the spreads of the games, too, because some people even bet on the games.”

Gumbita, whose father coached in the league for 35 years, said he and his family had seen players’ parents lose more and more perspective each year. They have grown too intense, he said, too obsessed with success.

“You’d figure that people would realize how important this league is to the kids around here, and just let the kids play without getting into the middle of everything,” Gumbita said. “Maybe what happened now will finally bring some of these parents back to earth.”

But are the parents in this league really that different from parents elsewhere? I couldn’t find proof of it. Just signs of the typical unrealistic expectations for young athletes common in any town.

One league player’s grandfather, who did not want his name to be used for fear of retribution, said parents here were out of control because they “all expect their kid to get a scholarship.” That was just before he told me to keep an eye on his grandson because, “mark my words,” he’ll make the pros someday.

To keep fans in check, some youth leagues have resorted to videotaping the crowds at games. That’s something the Mount Pleasant league will consider — if it returns to the field.

“I don’t know if we’ll play next season,” Albright, the league president, said, choking up. “But quitting because of this would be a shame.”

At least one team is ending the season on its own terms. With the gates on the league’s field padlocked, the team continued to practice on another field.

Far away from the stadium’s game-day noise. A world away from bullets in a parking lot.

Their workout showed their resilience, but also the joy of playing youth sports. Children start out knowing it. It’s only adults who can crush it.

— Juliet Macur is a columnist with The New York Times.