[rotationslim]

The problem in LDS church ball is in part the badly behaved players, and/or inexperienced untrained referees, that is all true; However the deep root of the problem is "game management", or more broadly, league management.

Almost always the "High Councilman" (to non-LDS reader- a High Priest the old guys who govern church affairs, unpaid) over athletics always ends up being the guy they don't trust to run other things, so you almost always end up with a meek, non-strong leader. They are often left calling (another volunteer) to run the league, usually another weak, inefficient leader or a musclehead jock who does not value sportsmanship. The end result is that they are too afraid to kick out the offenders, or don't see a problem with a good fistfight now and then. So it just goes on and on... and never gets better.

Bad behaving players is a given, the problem is that they are not thrown out of the league for the game, or for the season, banned for lifetime.

It is simple math, If you keep tossing out the bad ones eventually you will have good ones left, and everyone can have fun.

But for some well intentioned, but missguided attempt to include "all", we keep letting the same jackasses ruin it for everyone else.

I took over our Stake program a few years ago, and have largely cleaned it up. I use a lot of education, which has turned the culture of the league into one that values sportsmanship, as a result there is significant peer pressure to behave. Make no mistake, we still play hard, even physical ball, I won't have any of that "we don't keep score" rubbish, we play, we play to win, and we play hard, we just act like gentlemen while we hammer each other.

I am not stupid enough to guarentee perfect behavior, but I do guarantee to my Stake President (local area leader) that offenders will be dealt with quickly and harshly (but fairly). A number of former athletes are no longer welcome in the gym, making it safer for the rest of us.

'nuff said, I am done, thanks for listening.