Sporting events bring out all sorts of characters and most fans are decent enough. It is important to let them know when they've crossed the line and fans usually don't know it until it's too late. Part of the problem is the consistency between officials and similar circumstances. Where one official bounced this fan out of the gym (rightly so, I will add) the next guy will just tell the guy to go back to his seat.

Basically, he can listen to the game on the radio tonight. Cause he's gone in a heart beat. Not trying to put a negative spin on this. But what were you doing sitting on the bench? I never do this.

and not the last one. Thirty years ago you never heard about a fan or a parent assaulting or threatening a sports official. Ten years ago a single incident in a year would make headlines. Today it seems like between football, basketball and hockey fans, there are multiple major incidents every season. Hang on to your socks because these things seem to have to run their cycles (teen suicide late 80s-90s; Columbine-like events are two good examples where hideous deeds inspire more of the same). Unfortunately, a simple court admonishment (bad boy, don't do it again) such as occurred in Pittsburgh does nothing to turn the tide.

The problem in every instance is the incompetence of game management. If a major incident takes place at a school, the school should be liable in some capacity as well as the crazy fans. In my area, it's like pulling teeth simply to get a room for officials, even to change in, and game management acts as if they are doing us a huge favor to give us anything, especially for sub-varsity contests. Too often, the only person with keys to the room where I keep my stuff is the coach of the home team, one of the last people I want to see after a game. There is game management, but in the worst sites, they are oblivious, and sometimes don't even dress in an identifiable way. I'm surprised more doesn't happen in JV/frosh games when there is often no uniformed game management and everything runs through the coach. I doubt any cases of official assault happen in places where game management is present and actually cares about the officials and takes the extra step to ensure that we know that someone will back us up and not hang us out to dry. The more the onus is put on schools to provide a certain level of security at schools with consequences for failing, the fewer of these incidents there will be.

As an aside, with the fan coming up to you, if you didn't explicitly have that fan removed, I bet game management would've said, "Now Mr. Fan you shouldn't do that, OK," and that would be it.