Quote:
Originally Posted by ConnorOSU
This is my third year officiating for CYO (Catholic Youth Organization, 3rd-8th grade), and I am a senior in high school. The majority of our officials are in high school, and we have adult officials for the big/older games. So here's the situation:
Both teams (seventh grade boys) are playing a competitive game but Team A comes out in the second half with an aggressive but clean trap. This completely flusters Team B and they quickly go down ten points. When they do manages to break the trap the kids go up for layups and throw themselves on the floor without any contact and expect a foul to be called. Neither my partner or I give them the call, and soon the crowd is getting out of hand.
In between the third and fourth quarters I go over towards the bleachers to get ready to put the ball in play. This is when one of the fans of Team B asks my name. I give it to him, and because I'm a bit of a smartass, give him the name and number of my supervisor as well. I'm smiling while doing this, and another fan tells me that smiling while officiating is unprofessional and to stop before he wipes it off my face. I'm debating having him ejected for threatening me but I decide to just tough out the final quarter. After all, I'm a skinny 17 year old, and while I enjoy being a smartass, actually ejecting a 300 pound samoan father scares the hell out of me.
So my question is, was I out of line smiling at the fans of a losing team? I've seen other officials in CYO (adult, veteran ones), smile at funny sequences during a game or if a fan says something so wrong it's funny. And in addition, our supervisor tells the younger refs to have fun while also keeping control of the situation. I think I did that.
Sorry for the length, and thanks for your opinions.
|
My 2¢ --
1) I would not have answered the person asking my name. The only time I speak with any member of the crowd is when they ask me a polite, informational question. (For example, in a recent game, the scoreboard was changed during halftime because it differed from both books. One member of the crowd came up to me as we were waiting for the start of the 3rd quarter and asked why, so I told him.)
2) As soon as the fan made a direct threat, I would have game management remove that person and contact the police.