Chants coming to an end?

[Old School]

Originally Posted by Ref in PA

Since I have become a "patched" basketball official in PA, there have been two times when the gym has been cleared except for the players and coaches. The teams were rivals and fights occurred at the game between fans. The teams played their games without fans the following year. This sent a message to the fans in my opinion and they have behaved in subsequent years. There will probably be more incidents in the future between rival schools but in the mean time this has controled the problem.

Barring fans sends a message on a couple of different levels. The community, parents, students all get the message. A financial message is also sent - no revenue from gate or concessions.

Clearing the stands has always been an option for officials, but it seems like it is only supported if you got a riot breaking out. How much of this behavior is something that the officials has jurisdiction over? IOW, at what point can we step in and say no more? If we are looking at no man's land here, then this problem is only going to get much worse. What I mean by no man's land is if I, the official go to the school manager and say these fans are out of control and I'm stopping the game because I want those guys out, the whole section, and the administrator says I don't have the authority to do that, and none of the other officials that have worked here has had a problem with it. Now I got to let it go and probably have ruined my chances of working in that gym again. No official is going to want to touch that! No man's land and the fans know it.

To the posters that think our society caters too much to the minority or insignificant issues. On this particular issue I have to disagree. Now removing the Easter Bunny from the government building. Yes, that trivial. This problem, is a problem that's only going to get worse. For some reason that I have not been able to figure out, our society likes to one up the other, which cause more and more extreme behavior and actions. For ex: Janet wardrobe malfunction. Washington is being proactive to the problem. What I'm saying is they are attempting to do something about it before it reaches a crisis situation.

Actually, and you guys are probably going to disagree with me on this, but I think the NFHS needs to fix this. They have the authority to mandate that such chants, and other actions by followers not be allowed in their games. Not just put the onus on the officials either, but also of the school administration, especially if it's own students are doing this. Even if it's not the home team fans, this will not be tolerated. If we get it from the Fed. then it's across the board and Washington and other states don't have to have special laws in there books to legislate, imho.