Player and Referee Brawl

[IUgrad92]

Originally Posted by SC Official

I am with you and am so tired of people acting like it's so outrageous for us to get emotional every once in awhile when these high schoolers and "coaches" (I use that term lightly for this kind of basketball) cross the line.

It makes me laugh how these travel ball teams and tournament directors want better officiating yet don't want to pay up and only use 2-person crews. And then when good varsity or college officials come work the games, they get upset when they can't get away with what usual officials for these tournaments let them get away with.

I'm not sure anyone here feels it's outrageous, however; give me an example when getting emotional as an official has resolved a situation or has made it better? To me it is not different in getting into a debate with a coach thinking you are going to make him/her see things your way in the heat of the moment. It just doesn't happen or work that way..... We have to rise above and typically disengage, no matter how off-base a coach is. We have tools given to us to use for these situations. Those tools should handle 99% of the situations we see.

I just saw this past Sunday an older/experienced official get into a back-and-forth with a coach, started getting emotional about it, and ended up whacking the coach, 100% because he got emotional. In this particular situation, he easily could have just told the coach what he had and walked away, but instead made it about who could puff their chest out further and how he was right and the coach was wrong. It was just flat out ugly and no one in the gym was very impressed with either of them.

There is normally more than enough, if not too much, emotion already involved in youth sports. As sporting officials, I think it behooves us to not add to that element of the game, rather an opposite, steady, controlled influence whenever possible. I believe the official in this OP could have been that opposite and much needed force. 80% of the video wouldn't exist if he had.....

[SC Official]

Quite frankly, I think the occasional emotional reaction from an official tends to be a good thing to put coaches and players in place. Offseason game like this, all bets are off. You wanna start swinging? Don't be surprised when someone swings back. With tournaments like these where there is literally no oversight of the courts, drastic measures are necessary.

Also let's remember that this kind of thing would never happen in a real game with administrators, security, and real coaches. In the couple times it has happened (officials getting physically assaulted), appropriate authorities acted immediately and the offenders were dismissed from their respective programs.

[JRutledge]

Sometimes you have little no choice. I have a story to tell that illustrates this fact.

I had a "travel" game about 2 years ago of a big shoe company tournament.

I was in a convention center that had probably a little over 60 courts on the same floor and building. So it was impossible to hear clearly these portable scoreboards that are often used in these situations. Whistles and noise everywhere.

Well, I was on a court in a 2 person game where I was the lead and opposite table. There were seconds in the game and in front of me was a putback of a rebound, then shot to win the game. The putback went in the basket and my partner who was right next to the table ruled the shot good. I thought nothing of it but as I was walking off the court, I had a bunch of players and coaches directly in my face. Now I did not make the ruling at all, but I had to get these people out of my face. So I asked my partner, "What did you rule?" He said, "I counted the basket." I said "OK, game over and proceeded to walk off the court but was followed by a coach or two and a parent who was a blonde haired woman who told me aggressively, "You have to change this call!" I said basically that she needed to get out of my face and walked away. As I walked away, she grabbed my arm rather aggressively. I did not know at the time who grabbed my arm, but I turned around and this woman was there holding my arm. I aggressively pulled my arm away and I immediately said to this woman in the most profane way, "You need to get out of my.........face and don't you ever put your........hands on me in life!!!" She immediately backed off but continued to try to make me change a call that I did not make in the first place. She was still in my space, I had no idea what was going to happen or who was a threat. Then the team director or head guy of the team came to me also trying to get me to change the call and told me how much money he spent. I had to basically get loud and even aggressive to get these people out of my space. It ended up working where they were a little bit on their heals. I am not an opposing figure physically, but I am about 6 feet tall and was taller than a couple of the people that were around me. I used that to my advantage as well as my tone which caused a scene on purpose.

The assignor of this tournament is a good friend of mine and a college and state final official. He came to me later to ask me about what happened as there were witnesses and the team complained to the tournament people and he came to address the situation. Well the woman admitted to grabbing me and he basically dismissed her immediately and told them in so many words they do not have a right to behave that way, but I am convinced if I just "walked away" when there was really nowhere to go, the incident would have gotten worse IMO. I would not have worked this tournament without the person that I know assigning the games. And I have done it since that runs at the same time in July.

I do not buy this, "We have to be nice at all times" BS. I think we have to read the sitaution and act accordingly. Because if things like this happened during a real game, we have not only appropriate remedies there are procedures to avoid such things all together. In summer games we might not even have a locker room or a safe place to go. And the participants also know they can do things and they will play or participate in the later games. We are not in the most authoritative position.

Peace

[deecee]

Originally Posted by #olderthanilook

I'm all for defending yourself.

Watch the video again. What does the official do after being knocked to the ground? He gathers himself, stands up and instead of heading directly to a lockerroom or somewhere safe off the court, gets right up in a kid's face and chest bumps him. A KID.

Walk or jog away, man. Man up, drop the ego and get yourself immediately out of the situation.

The video will back you up 100. Instead, the video shows the official inviting continued violence.

-100

this assumes a lot and poses a wonderful hypothetical. 1 kid took him down and 3-4 kids were hovering over. Ya just get up, dust yourself off and walk off the court like nothing happened. That's funny if you ask me.

[IUgrad92]

Originally Posted by deecee

-100

this assumes a lot and poses a wonderful hypothetical. 1 kid took him down and 3-4 kids were hovering over. Ya just get up, dust yourself off and walk off the court like nothing happened. That's funny if you ask me.

No, you count on your partner(s), coaches, and other sane and decent adults 'in the room' to assist you in disengaging from the chaos. Then you get video of the situation, if possible, get police to the scene, file a report, and deal with it legally. That would be realistic. The picture you painted with sarcasm and satire is not.

I would also lay odds that my 'picture' would be suggested and supported by a lot of law enforcement individuals, and likely most basketball assignors.

1 kid pushed him down. The 3-4 other kids could have easily made it a dog pile, but didn't. The official got up and engaged/charged at the player (in legal terms likely a MINOR). The official COULD have gone the opposite direction preventing the majority of the chaos that ensued.

But to some I guess that means he would have been 'less of a man'....

[SC Official]

Originally Posted by IUgrad92

No, you count on your partner(s), coaches, and other sane and decent adults 'in the room' to assist you in disengaging from the chaos. Then you get video of the situation, if possible, get police to the scene, file a report, and deal with it legally. That would be realistic. The picture you painted with sarcasm and satire is not.

I would also lay odds that my 'picture' would be suggested and supported by a lot of law enforcement individuals, and likely most basketball assignors.

1 kid pushed him down. The 3-4 other kids could have easily made it a dog pile, but didn't. The official got up and engaged/charged at the player (in legal terms likely a MINOR). The official COULD have gone the opposite direction preventing the majority of the chaos that ensued.

But to some I guess that means he would have been 'less of a man'....

Since when are these free-for-all tournaments known for having "sane and decent adults" around?

This was not a high school game with administrators and cops standing guard.

[#olderthanilook]

Originally Posted by SC Official

Since when are these free-for-all tournaments known for having "sane and decent adults" around?

This was not a high school game with administrators and cops standing guard.

Even more reason to immediately distance/remove oneself from the fray.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by #olderthanilook

Even more reason to immediately distance/remove oneself from the fray.

So what do you do when you are followed to the parking lot? Yes that happened to me when walking away.

Again we can play the holier-than-thou card all day, but not every situation is as easy as you are trying to make it.

And even if we do not agree with every action, I understand why it happened.

Peace

[#olderthanilook]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

So what do you do when you are followed to the parking lot? Yes that happened to me when walking away.

Again we can play the holier-than-thou card all day, but not every situation is as easy as you are trying to make it.

And even if we do not agree with every action, I understand why it happened.

Peace

Easy?

Nothing we as officials do in preparation or on the court, relatively speaking, is considered "easy".

My comments are about doing what is right. And, most of the time, as life has taught us over and over, the right thing to do is rarely ever easy.

[#olderthanilook]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

So what do you do when you are followed to the parking lot?

What do I do? I keep walking at a fast pace, get into my car and drive away.

What do you recommend?

[IUgrad92]

Originally Posted by SC Official

Since when are these free-for-all tournaments known for having "sane and decent adults" around?

This was not a high school game with administrators and cops standing guard.

Well, within 5-10 seconds I see 5 grown men in street clothes making there presence known on the court and none of them appeared to want to add to the chaos. So I would say in this specific case he would have had plenty of help had he chose to try to escape the situation.

It was, and always will be, absolutely wrong for a player to be physically violent with an official. At the same time, if an official chooses to put themselves in a YOUTH sporting event, whether it is sanctioned or not, whether there is security or not, whether there is gym administration or not, more times than not the correct thing to do is disengage, IF AT ALL POSSIBLE. If the OP video doesn't support that philosophy than I don't know what does.