Hello fellow stripes, I‘m new to this site and have read a lot of threads on here and gotten a lot of good information.
I plan to visit this site often and learn from you veteran’s official.
Before I start my thread I would like to tell You a little about myself and my experience in officiating.

I am from Cambodia but raised in the U.S for over 25 years and been around sports most of my life, I am a certified High school official for 5 years and have done some Varsity Games.


Tonight or last night depending what time zone you are in I was officiating in an adult rec. league and the game was a close one, Team A is up by 8 points ending the half with the fouls pretty even about 4 to 5.
The second half is when things start heating up Team A lead was now down to 2 point game with less than 3 min. to go and the foul was Team A 6 fouls and Team B 0 fouls when the final horn sounded the final score was Team B beating Team A by 7 points (not sure what the final score was but it was a 7 point game) and the final fouls count for the second half was 14 to 0 all by Team A.
14 to 0 fouls does look bad by one team but 8 of those 14 in the second half where 2 “T”s and 6 regular fouls to stop the clock of course I could of call a couple of intentional foul on Team A but chose not to since they are already piss at my partner and I for a lob side fouls calling game.

After the game 2 members from Team A started to verbally abuse me about my officiating and like most of us official that is nothing new but when they start making statement with strong profanity about me I took it hard and did not like it.

These 2 members from Team A approach me and made many comments, "like Your head is up your !@#$ and that you couldn’t tell what a foul is if it was right in front of you cause your to @#$! stupid to realized what the different is, You have never played the game so you have no concept of what basketball mean”. Do they need to make the rulebook in a different language for you so you can understand the rules? You can’t play the game so why ref it, just stick to ping-pong.

What I don’t understand is why did these 2 players verbally abuse me and not my p when we both officiated the game, my partner was right there by my side and heard all the comments and not 1 of them made a comment toward him.
Is it because my partner is white and I’m Asian and Asian doesn’t know what basketball is?

After the game and their comments toward me I felt that I don’t deserve this kind abuse, I did not say anything back to them hoping not to cause any more anger or make any comment to provoke them in attacking me.
I continued to ref the next game but was not myself after hearing those negative and profanity comments toward me.
I felt some of those comments were racial and demeaning.

So my question is how do I deal with this situation knowing that I will eventually officiate that team again sometime down the line, is there any laws or rule where I can file a complaint too?

Sorry if this thread is to long.

IMMEDIATELY file a complaint against the team with the league. MAKE sure you let them know the racist nature of the comments directed towards you. at NO time are these comments EVER acceptable

I don't know about what you can do off the court but I do know what you can do on the court. Go back and officiate the league again and again. If they know that their comments can have an effect on you they win. Don't lean one way or another when you have this team again. Call your game and do your thing! They will eventually understand that you aren't going anywhere and you will get your confidence back.

You should not tolerate any behaviour put a complaint in or if not that get one of there games again


Early in my career in a under 14 men 1st division game these suprisingly get very intense it was a great game scores were level me and my partner were refing great.

Sores still died clocks running out 1 second left im in trail black puts up a shhot siren goes very tuff decision for me but i was 100% sure the ball had not been released when the siren started. I cancelled the basket and headed straight over to the scorers table to get out before i got abused.

I wasnt quick enough parents and players coming up screaming at me saying the shot shoudl have been aloud i had to act im not going to back down. I just said with some pretty nice hand gestures of telling sum one to go "Get out of my face, get out of my face, get out of my face or you'll go, its over get out of here" and they left and i got many formal complaints it was very stubborn although it made me feel tuff and strong i very much regret speaking. Like the indians use to say "feel good, no good".

I think it would be very hard for me to officiate the same if I knew that I was gonna ref that same team again.

If I file a complaint to the Rec. League and they do not ban him or make some kind of punishment toward this person, and the next time I officiate their game again and more racial comments is said wouldn't that be asking for a lawsuit against the league?

Report it to your league management. I'd be surprised if they didn't do anything. I also wouldn't ref that league again if they didn't.

You should have ejected both players. Even though the game is over, you jurisdiction does not end until you leave the confines of the court. In my area, the ejection would have resulted in at least a 1 game suspension. THen the league might pay a little more attention to it.

So, if it is hard to ref a team the same way how do you expect to move up when the same thing could happen? If you don't go back then mission accomplished for the other team. If you go back and do what is right game after game the players will adjust to you even if you have to throw some out along the way.
If you really feel threatened then I would say you might have a reason for not going back but otherwise you should go back.

I agree with Tomegun. You have to treat each game as an individual game. Don't let what happened before scare you away. You worked your game. Now you have to let it go and get ready for the next one. If you get this team again start with a clean slate. It's one of the more difficult things to do in officiating, but I'm sure we've all had to do it at one time or another. If they act up again, take care of business within the rules. As far as your options after the game, you could still toss the guys and as everyone said, make sure you send a detailed report to the administrator of the league. As usual, got to love adult leagues!

Don't quit! You can never let the morons of the world get their way.

What's the matter with some people...sigh.

Thanks for all ur comments and advice I will continued to ref that league and start with a clean sheet and go from there.

Please understand that I'm not saying you deserved the treatment you received. You should absolutely file a report and you should continue to work those games. Next time you have that team, you should T up those players the first time they open their mouths.

Having said that. . . if you get to the end of an adult league game and one team has zero team fouls for the half, then you have missed something. Probably a lot of somethings. I'm not saying that you should make stuff up to even the count. But there is no way that an adult league team can go 16 minutes without fouling. It's so unlikely that it's not even a plausible possiblity.

Go back over the game in your mind and try to find plays that you passed on that you shouldn't have, given the game situation. Next game, try to find those plays and put a whistle on them. I'm talking about a handcheck on the dribbler, or a slight bump at the beginning of a drive. Those kinds of plays do not affect the game (no FTs, no turnover), but can be a tool to help you avoid the exact situation you found yourself in.

I agree with Chuck. The game was close for a long time so there had to be fouls both ways. It might be understandable for a team to have zero fouls if they won or lost by 30 points but even then, there had to be something. Enough said on that.

Regarding your report.....I would get it in today. You need to stay away from statements like "in my judgement", "in my opinion" and use things like "by rule", "#7 said %&$#*". Be very specific with some game situations and then let them know how threatened you felt by their post game comments. If they do not punish those guys, then I would not work for someone who does not back me up.

Be forwarned, they might check with other players from both teams to see if you did everything you could to officiate and manage the game appropriately. If you get a negative report, you may be the one who gets disciplined. Good luck and fill us in.

Moral of the story: Don't take Adult Rec League games.

Just a minor addendum to my previous post. I remembered this story. When I first started reffing lacrosse, I did a lot of little kids games. The assignor told me, "If you don't throw 5 flags per half at this level, you're not doing your job."

Different sport, different level, but I would suggest that the philosophy is the same. If you're not blowing the whistle in those games, you're not helping the situation. JMO.