Interesting insights. And it seems that race did play a large role.
State Supreme Court rules against referee
By Andrew Wolfson
[email protected]
The Courier-Journal
The game must go on, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled yesterday, refusing to order the reinstatement of referee Vic Montgomery to officiate the Seventh Region boys' basketball final between Jeffersontown and Ballard.
The Kentucky High School Athletic Association had postponed the game Saturday after Montgomery, 36, won a temporary injunction from a Jefferson Circuit Court judge blocking a local decision to bar him from calling the game.
But Court of Appeals Judge William E. McAnulty Jr. yesterday held that Circuit Judge Steve Ryan improperly granted the motion without a hearing or notice to the KHSAA's lawyers.
In an order issued two hours before the rescheduled game tipped off last night, McAnulty said Montgomery's loss of his chance to "demonstrate his skill on a significant stage" was outweighed by the "KHSAA's responsibility to manage the emotional events of a high school tournament for the benefit of the public at large, the schools that make up the KHSAA and, most importantly, the students participating."
Montgomery appealed to the Supreme Court, but it also ruled against him.
The controversy could have threatened the Sweet 16, which will begin tomorrow at Rupp Arena in Lexington.
Defending the association's right to stage the game without Montgomery, its lawyer, Phillip Scott of Lexington, said during a hearing before McAnulty, "We don't want it to be the Sweet 15."
Montgomery's lawyer, Thomas Clay, told the court the referee was only trying to defend his reputation after being unfairly deprived of his chance to call the championship game.
"This is about a man's reputation," Clay said. "It is about more than the $55 he would be paid to work the game."
Montgomery was removed from officiating the DeSales-Western tournament game at halftime Friday night -- and told he wouldn't be allowed to work Saturday's final -- after an altercation between him and another official, Darrell Bailey.
Montgomery, who is black, said yesterday that Bailey, who is white, called him "boy" at least seven times during the dispute. Montgomery said Bailey mistakenly thought he was responsible for two officials who graduated from Male High School being removed from an earlier game between Male and Jeffersontown.
Montgomery said a Jeffersontown official had called to get the Male alumni removed.
Bailey could not be reached for comment
Montgomery, who is an assistant principal at Scott Middle School in Fort Knox and has officiated games since 1994, said, "I know how to show restraint, but I am a man, too. If you call me boy, you might as well call me nigger."
Montgomery admitted he "got emotional" when Jerry Wyman, the director of athletics and activities for the Jefferson County Public Schools, told him he wouldn't work Saturday night. He said he deserved to work that game based on evaluations from high school coaches.
In an interview, Scott, the KHSAA's attorney, said that even if racial taunting precipitated the argument, it did not excuse Montgomery's conduct, which spilled into public view while he was in his official's uniform.
"If you are in a striped shirt, that is not the kind of leadership we expect in high school sports," Scott said. "Officials set the examples for others to follow."
He said a student-athlete would have been suspended for a similar outburst.