Racist remarks and taunting
 

Any of you have to address racist remarks and taunting from the crowd? How would you have handled this as an official?

https://www.inforum.com/news/north-d...r-consequences

You can hear the monkey sounds and warhooping in the embedded video. Officials had to have heard it. Parents did let school official know, they did nothing.

If It Were Me ...
 

If the crowd yells bothersome inappropriate remarks at me, or my partner, I'm probably not waiting for the site director (school official) to react, rather, I'm immediately bringing it to the attention of the site director (school official), and I'm probably offering a suggestion (warning or expulsion), and in the worst cases, it may not only be a suggestion, but a mandate.

I would also followup with a report to my game assigner, who might choose to bump it up to the state interscholastic sports governing body.

If the crowd yells bothersome possibly inappropriate (booing, air ball, miss, you can't do that, etc.) remarks to the players, I'm probably first waiting to see if the site director (school official) reacts. In the worst cases (swearing, epithets, racial, ethnic, etc.), if they don't react, and they chose to ignore, I will probably bring it to their attention and possibly offer a suggestion (warning or expulsion), but I doubt that I would mandate anything, it's more of a school problem, to be handled, in its own way, by the school administrators, rather than a problem to be dealt with by a game official. At the minimum, I would not ignore. I would also followup with a report to my game assigner, who might choose to bump it up to the state interscholastic sports governing body.

In both cases, I would not have any direct contact or direct communication with fans. That's the site director's (school official) job, not the job of game officials, we're there to just report such incidents to the site director (school official), and to possibly advise (warning or expulsion) the site director (school official).

Never had to deal with it. But if I ever had to, I have no problem stopping the game and not resuming until it was addressed.

I'm not going to work at that type of environment. Guess I'd be the official on the local news who walked out on a game.

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Why would you only address something of that nature if it was only directed at you or your partner(s)?

If remarks are unacceptable towards a game official, they're unacceptable towards the student athletes.

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Apples And Oranges ...
 

Fans yell at players all the time (booing, air ball, miss, you can't do that, etc.) Many are locally (it could vary from one school to another) considered acceptable as part of the game. But as they get worse (swearing, epithets, racial, ethnic, etc.) they must be dealt with, by officials, or by site directors (school officials), or by both.

Yelling at game officials with words (not swearing, not epithets, not racial, not ethic, etc.) that may be deemed locally acceptable if yelled at players, may not be similarly acceptable if yelled at game officials.

"You stink" (or similar words) may be locally acceptable if yelled at players (probably wouldn't get my attention) but, depending on the volume (stands out in a crowd) and tone, may not be acceptable if yelled at a game official and would get my attention and a tête-à-tête with the site director (school officials).

Racial or equivalently unacceptable remarks directed at players--that's the conversation.

We're not talking about booing or "you stink". You like to go off on all these different directions. We're focused on something in particular here.

If you're willing to allow certain words to be directed at student athletes that you wouldn't allow directed at officials, you might need to re-examine your thought process, IMO.

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Regarding Fans ...
 

I decided to take it in a more general direction, responsibilities of officials and site directors regarding fans, to react to the parent in the video who questioned why game officials (I think he was talking about game officials, not school officials) reacted to fans yelling at the game officials while not reacting to fans yelling at players.

As for me, I'm not sure that I would be cognizant enough to differentiate between monkey yells that are racial in nature and those that may be "garden variety" distracting. 99% of my attention is on the players, bench, table, scoreboard, and partner, only 1% is on the crowd. I honestly doubt that I would realize that the monkey yells were only directed at the Black player (unless pointed out to me). Yes, for good or bad, I'm that focused on the players, not the fans.

I was (opening it up to all types fan yelling, good, bad, and ugly). Sorry if I confused anybody.

https://tse2.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.P...Fg&pid=Api&P=0

The parent compared fans yelling at officials being addressed to fans yelling out explicit racial comments at a player not being addressed.

If the subject matter is too uncomfortable for you to discuss, it's alright not to post. You don't have to entirely distort the conversation to meet your entertainment needs.




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Maybe Not Apples And Oranges ...
 

... but McIntosh Apples and Delicious Apples.

If you only want to post regarding the racial aspect of the parent comment, I'm fine with that that.

I just wanted to speculate about why one aspect (yelling at of officials) may have been be dealt with by game officials while the other aspect (monkey sounds by fans) may have been seemingly ignored by game officials.

Note: Maybe it wasn't completely ignored by the game officials but was reported to the site director, who chose not to do anything about it?

If this were my game, I probably could have been oblivious to the monkey sounds as racially intended (unless pointed out to me), but I may have had rabbit ears to the high volume fan obnoxiously and unacceptably yelling at me, or my partner.

My response to the parent would be, "I'm sorry sir, but I didn't realize that the monkey sounds were racially motivated. I didn't even realize that they were supposed to be monkey sounds, nor did I realize that they were only directed at Black players. Until you set me straight, I thought that they were just fans trying to distract the shooter. I did happen to hear one fan yelling obnoxiously and unacceptably at both me and my partner, and I couldn't ignore that. Be assured that I will report both of these unsporting issues to my assigner who, I'm sure, will bump both reports up to the state. I guarantee that your issue will not continue to be ignored".

Social Justice ...
 

While discussing social justice issues may be uncomfortable for for some, they're not for me.

Complex? Sure. Uncomfortable? If we don't discuss them, things will never get better.

Was doing a varsity game in Georgia several years ago
 

When the student section that took up a good chunk of mid-court started making racists remarks that I didn't hear. My crew chief, who was right in front of them when it happened, turned around immediately and gestured for the entire section to leave the gym. Got game admin and the school resource officer to assist and would not resume the game until they'd all left the premises.

Made sure to inform school admins what had happened but never did repeat to my partner or myself what was said other than it was "despicable."

Thanks for sharing.

I always pay attention to what comments are made by fans to the players and vice versa. I'll also tell players not to interact with fans and if they're saying something out of line to let the crew know. In today's world we need to be cognizant of what's going on around us. Not just for the players' safety, but for our safety as well. We have seen players slap fans. We have seen shootings inside of gymnasiums. We have fans who follow players and officials off the court. We can't say we don't know what's going on around us because we're staring at players standing around during free throws. Calling somebody a monkey is not a normal distraction technique by fans. Anybody who doesn't know what's going on in that situation just wants to be oblivious. I simply am not going to work in that type of environment. Any of those remarks made toward the player I take them as applying to me also, whether they be racial, anti-semitic, anti LGBTQ, threats of violence, etc.

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Leave The Facility Together ...
 

Partners should always leave the facility together. We had a group of disgruntled fans waiting for our guys in the parking lot a few years ago. Police had to be called.

Agree, but this didn't happen in the video.

Racial issues between fans and players have been happening more and more in Connecticut, in many sports, over the past few years, making it necessary for both game administrators and game officials to be more aware.

Some issues have been quite subtle ("SAT. SAT. SAT", implying academic ineptitude of urban (mostly Black opponents) while others have been much more aggressive ("N-word").

Don't belong in a school, or any other "civilized" environment.

It is most definitely clear as day somebody yells out monkey in the video while a player is shooting free throws. That was the main crux of the news story.

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Words Matter ...
 

Thanks for pointing that out. I missed that. Wasn't mentioned in article. Thought it was only monkey sounds (which are also bad). I went back and heard it (female voice). Disgusting.

Issue #1 in this clip is the student section standing on the basketball floor. Plenty of seats in the stands...should have been addressed by floor officials through game administration if necessary. Yes, stop the game...we don't continue until everyone takes a seat...don't care how much room there is on that sideline to stand.

Pretty sad this happened without anyone addressing the matter. Many times it is unfortunate that we have to be first to get involved and address nonsense like this...but as Raymond correctly points out, you better be aware of these things going on in your gym.

Another Incident ...
 

Utah High School Students Sanctioned Over Barking, Slurs Against Visiting Basketball Team

https://www.yahoo.com/news/utah-high...172959529.html

Those are some piss poor sanctions

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Sanctions ???
 

Even the word "sanction" just doesn't seem strong enough, "punishment", "penalty", or "consequence" might seem stronger.

They deserve to play at least three games without a student section along with suspensions for the entire student section for at least a week.

Ethnic, Racial, Etc. ...
 

... The year prior, the same student section reportedly taunted Asian American and Polynesian players from Hunter High when the team visited Roy High for their annual basketball match-up. According to witnesses, the spectators called members of the visiting team “dog eaters.” … The student section did not repeat the slur at last month's game, opting instead to bark …

As a game official, not knowing what occurred last year, the barking by itself might not get my ears up, and I might just pass it off as super obnoxious distracting fan behavior not crossing any ethic/racial/etc. line in the sand.

... In addition to the barking, the Roy High students could be heard shouting other offensive comments, such as “go home and eat more rice.” ...

Now this would get my ears up that would lead to a tête-à-tête with the site director.

To show how bad things have gotten, for the first 90% of my officiating career the word "site director" hardly ever came up. Their most important job was seeing that the locker room door was unlocked for us at halftime and after the game, and they were only noticed (squeaky wheel) if they didn't do that simple job.

Now we use the word "site director" all the time in regard to fan behavior, and it comes up at almost every single local board meeting where we're encouraged to identify them as soon as we walk in the door and to be aware of where they are located throughout the game, even in my middle school games.

Over the past three years, or so, Connecticut interscholastic basketball (and other sports) has had many occurrences of racial epithets, some subtle, other not so subtle, from fans directed at both players and opposing fans, sometimes leading to fights among fans.

As a lifetime Connecticut native this embarrasses me.

Bad Language ...
 

Had a weird bad language situation this past year.

I worked a lot of games in a nearby four middle school town.

One middle school had so many students that it had two boys teams, white and blue, and I worked three games between these two teams, two regular season, and one playoff.

These kids knew each other well, ate lunch together, sat next to each other in class, so there was a lot of friendly trash talk in the games.

First game, in a five person conference, I warned two players and their coaches that, although the taunting trash talk was friendly, with no profanity, it had to stop.

Second game was uneventful.

Third game, two Black opponents, more friendly taunting trash talk, but one quietly using the N-word ending in an “a”, both with smiles on their faces.

Tough decision for me, a White guy, but I decided to again go with the players and coaches conference warning.

It actually was the toughest call of the year for me, I still lose sleep over it.

Context is important, at least I hope it is?

Months later and I'm still not sure if I did the right thing?

One consolation, at least I didn't ignore the situation.

Mouth Washed Out With Soap ...
 

Oddly, if the N-word taunt had ended in an “r”, I’m 100% sure that I would have charged the technical foul.

I never heard either of my parents swear, or use any type of profanity.

Never the N-word, they politely used the term “colored people”, seemingly acceptable to all races back in the late 1950s here in Connecticut.

I once used the F-word, repeating what a childhood friend said, in front of Mom and immediately got my mouth washed out with soap.

Spending thirty years as a science teacher in front of a classroom of middle school students will teach one to watch one’s language.

The F-word and the N-word are not part of my vocabulary.

At least until I accidentally drop an anvil on my foot.