Parent blows up
 

AAU 8th grade boys game. Good referees. W11 goes up out of control and hits defender and falls badly on his ankle. PC called, coach comes out, parent comes from the stands. Dad takes some cheap shots with a final F.. you comment.

What would you do? T the team? Site management remove parent? Both? Nothing...?

This is a "had to be there" sitch, but the way you describe it, I'm whacking the coach based on his own reaction. I'm seriously considering a Team T for the behavior of the parent, but that may be mitigated if someone from the team or game management was making an effort to stop him or get him out of there. And we are DEFINITELY not continuing until the parent has been removed from the gym.

What did the coach do in the OP? Coach can come onto the floor to tend to an injured player. Unless the coach wants to make smart remarks to you instead of tensing to the player, you can then whack coach.

AAU parent on the floor? I'd consider suspending the game and leaving the floor until my next scheduled game. My guess is the rest of the parents are going to be yelling about it for the rest of the game, and I wouldn't exactly feel very safe.

Coach did nothing but take care of the kid. Dad is the only one going at the referees and the only one F bombing.

Just have the parent removed, don't punish the kid and the team for this.

The F-bomb is irrelevant from the parent, because as soon as he came down to berate the officials, he's leaving. Site management needs to be on top of it, though, and the officials shouldn't even have to address the situation.

OK, I made a bad assumption. I assumed the coach came out to berate the officials. If he just came out to take care of his player, I've got nothing on him.

Agreed.
But to be fair, every complex around here where they play travel ball has at least four courts going on at same time with one site manager. It's generally up to the officials to police it. Most of the time it's simple enough to tell people to leave but I'm sure we have all had to delay games waiting for some idiot to leave. Our sites are pretty good at taking care of things and backing officials if it comes to ejecting someone.

8th Grade AAU ball, parent is gone for this and team is assessed a T. Teach em young that this behavior is unacceptable. I may pass on the T IF the coach or someone else from the team was trying to deal with the parent.

In my AAU experience I learned that you shouldn't take crap from ANYONE and you deal with it quickly, punitively and move on. By year #2 on the circuit I had enough of a rep that parents who knew my tolerance would police "new" coaches and parents. My favorite moment was when a new coach stepped out of line and I T'd him up and a mom from the other side of the gym yelled out "I told you he wasn't gonna take your nonsense."

Parent ejection, Team technical foul, and in my area we have a rule that if a parent gets tossed the kid leaves with him. The last part was put in a few years ago and really helps control these fools.

I'm glad that last part works in your area. Seems like a harsh punishment for a kid that (probably) did nothing wrong

AAU complex I work at, if a Coach gets ejected security is there quickly to escort him out the building. They point to their handcuffs when they need to deal with fans.

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I'm sure that works most of the time BUT...I'd ask you to remember kids don't get to choose their parents....

Understand that this isn't my rule. It was created by the people who run the local AAU tournaments because they had too many problems with parent behavior. All of the AAU games are pay-to-play, so they simply decided to have the kid lose the playing time that the parents paid for as penalty for the poor actions. It was actually a brilliant idea as it hits the people in the pocket book. I can tell you that parent behavior improved greatly after the rule was implemented.

And I don't do this for the kids (even though all the benevolent parents and coaches do). I personally like the rule.

The entire free world knows you dont do this for the kids...isnt necessary for you to repeat it twice a week...As for the rule, i'm sure it works but i think tossing the idiot parent and suspending/banning him from games would work just as well.

Very few of us do it for the kids ("for the kids" is the single phrase that makes me nearly vomit) but I think his point is valid here and appropriate.

I'm not calling the team T (unless directed to do so) here, but I like the rule that sends players out with their parents when mom or dad gets tossed. AAU can be a horrible environment for officials, so draconian measures aren't really out of place.

They need to have someone ready to pounce if a fan comes on the court. I'm not saying they need to be able to stop it from happening every single time, but when it does happen I shouldn't be the one to deal with it.

I know travel is a different animal, and maybe that's why I don't work nearly as much of it as I used to (aside from the pay), but expecting officials to deal with this nonsense is too much. I suppose instituting severe penalties like Nevada describes would be helpful.

KK,

That was my fault. Cant believe the things that happen in AAU here and got typing too fast.

Ok. In earlier post you also indicated not to punish the kid. Frankly, I tend to want to punish the bad actor. That's my position and i like what BNR mentioned…security and handcuffs.

Also, i don't think why we do what we do or who we do it for or "for the kids" has anything to do with it. I know everybody has different reasons for doing it. I have many reasons for doing it. I just think bad actors should be punished/barred etc. I'm not a fan of guilt by association when one person isn't able to choose who he's associated with… That doesn't have anything to do with why i'm there or your there etc.

I understand the position and if its truly gotten that bad then that may be all that's left...

Any parent ejected should not be permittee back at a basketball game until taking a referee course and passing the exam. :cool:

FWIW, I'm in the "kick out and ban the parent, don't penalize the [probably mortified] kid" school.

I was in the camp of don't punish the kid. After having a parent wanting to assault me in the parking lot last month and the City Attorney not wanting to do anything I am all for the kid leaving with the parent. That feels like it will stop the behavior. Just leaving a gym where they hate the referees anyway doesnt feel like it will change any behavior.

Some people want to say not to punish the kids because we do this for the kids. I think that's what he was responding to. I'll admit my reaction is sometimes just as reflexive on that topic.

My main point with that is that I'm not calling a technical foul on the team for Dad's stupidity here. If a league decides to add penalties such as removing the player when a parent gets tossed, I can see valid reasons to support that. I've done enough travel ball in the past to know just how bad these knuckleheads can be.

BigCat I responded to you in regards to "I'd ask you to remember kids don't get to choose their parents"

I'm saying I don't care. It's 8th grade AAU ball which some parents (and kids) think is the NBA. Unfortunately sometimes a heavy hand is required to get a message across. Will it work? Who knows. But when I make a decision as a ref I never once think "what about little Johnny/or Suzy".

In my experience no good deed goes unpunished so I just want the crap sorted, fixed and the game to move on. After all it's 8th grade AAU ball.

I know Deecee. We all have different life experiences. Mine tells me I'd never punish the kid for the sins of the parent.

One thing about punishing the kid as well as the parent, gives the coaches and other team parents major incentive to police each other.

This is the main reason. Parents policing themselves at these events works the best. I also stopped doing AAU many years ago. Now I may do 3-4 games per year in the offseason for AAU. Mostly because I really got sick of the stupidity, parents, and coaches.