Quote:
Originally posted by Indy_Ref
JR,
How many times have you pressed charges on an individual(s) for a similar act that occurred before, during, or after a game? In your 40+ years of officiating multiple sports, I'm quite sure you've had some instances where you pressed charges.
Please post some of the instances here so we can learn how to handle these situations if/when we decide to press charges in our own future games. I appreciate hearing about some of the other official's experiences that have been posted here. How about hearing about some of yours?
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I'll give you 2 examples from the last coupla years. Please note that I get involved in these because all complaints- both ways- get funnelled through me in our association. Btw, this may be a long post- to fully describe all details.
1)City League varsity boys finals last year: I assigned a very promising, young but experienced official to this game. For his partner, I made sure that he was paired with a take-charge vet. Game was held in a neutral site- a local community college gym- and the game was standing room only. At the end of the game, a male adult followed the young official to the dressing room,screaming and swearing at him. The officials asked gym security to get rid of the guy, and he was escorted out of the building. The fan was identified as a parent of one of the players, who was also a local high school teacher at another school, and had coached Frosh and JV ball at that school. I asked for incident reports from both officials, gym security and other people who had witnessed the scene. We sent these reports, along with a letter, to the committee that oversees high school sports for this league. We also sent copies to the involved fan/parent and the principal of the high school that employs him. Basically, we stated that this type of action was deplorable,and, unless we were given assurances that something like this would not happen again, we would not officiate any games that he was in attendance at-whether he was coaching or watching. We basically told them that if we felt a game wasn't safe for our officials, then we wouldn't be sending any. I also made sure that a long time acquaintance, the sports editor of the local paper,got the story also. He wrote a column on it, without identifying the fan, but deploring his actions.The upshoot was that the fan was completely embarrassed, apologized in writing to everyone that he could think of, and even wrote a "letter to the editor" telling everyone how big an idiot he was. We received similar letters from his principal,the sports council, etc., all stating that they deplored his actions and that they would try to ensure that similar acts wouldn't happen like that in the future. Will it stop future incidents like this? I really don't think so, but it can't hurt- and I know one fan who's gonna behave himself from now on anyway. I hope.
If you think that the above might have been an over-reaction on our part, it flowed partly from this incident the year before:
2)Boy's varsity regional tournament here in town: I was the RIC(referee-in-chief) and assignor. Neutral officials for all games- couldn't be from the league representatives that were playing. The officials (one from my association) had just entered their dressing room after their game ended. Another official who had watched the game had just come to tell the guys that they had done a good job. All of a sudden, the door smacks open and hits the official who had just entered right in the back. It's a fan/father from the losing team who's totally p*ssed at one of the officials. This fan is swearing his head off, threatening the official and trying to get at him. The other official physically held him off, and security then came in and got the guy. Long story short? We laid charges for "threatening" and the school where the game was held laid "trespassing" charges against the fan/parent for going into the dressing room. One plea-bargain later, the fan pleaded guilty to both charges, paid a small fine, and agreed to be barred from his son's gmes until his son graduated.The down side? The threatened official was so shaken up that he said that he would refuse playoff assignments in the future if he was selected. I heard that he did change his mind on that eventually,and I'm glad because I thought that the guy was an excellent official.
Indy,by no means are these all the problems that I've seen over the years- but I'm out of breath.
I've just seen so many promising,as well as veteran, officials quit because of the abuse, that I am kind of a fanatic now about not cutting anybody any slack.