It Has To Stop!
 

Hey all,

As some of you may know, I coordinate the basketball intramural officials at my university. As a quick background, 95% of the officials that work these games have never picked up a whistle before the season begins, and the players who play in the games know this.

Regardless of their inexperience, what happened tonight during a game is a problem that faces all of us...all too often. Tonight, at the conclusion of a first round playoff game, a member of the losing team (by 20), who had been given a technical in the first half, decided to start threatening one of the officials. As the official began to back away (the player, by the way, 6'4, the official, a freshman, 5'5), the player first chest bumped him, and then head butted the official.

Although a lot is still undetermined, I can tell you that the player has been suspended from all intramural sports for the remainder of his academic career, and charges are pending. Unfortunately, I was not at the gym when the incident happened, but arrived just a few minutes after. I will keep you all updated on what happens.

I would suggest having the athletes sign a petition stating, " That the officials are not professionals but student workers. They are to be respected and not threatened. If certain measures are broken you will be suspended from IM activities for the academic year or banned from your academic career." I would recommend having campus safety at all events especially playoffs.

Wow - never seen anything that bad in intramurals (though a couple of times I thought I'd come close). Good to see that the department is pressing charges. I'd also suggest contacting whatever the school's judicial system is and bringing the student up on in-house charges, as well.

TRef,

I'm going to have to disagree with your first proposed sentence. Players at this level always think they know more than the referees, and this would just give them leverage. Granted, IM officials aren't NBA officials, but neither are high school officials. That doesn't take anything away from either set of officials. I don't care if the official is a hobo you just picked up off the street. Be mad at the organizing body, or just don't play, but by saying that "the officials are not professionals" is hanging the official out to dry IMO. I'm sure that's not how you meant it, but I'm just saying.

TMP,

I don't know how exactly your system works, but for the IM games I work, we have one supervisor (a student who has officiated for a couple of years, and then through an application process gets the job of supervisor) that is assigned to each game. We have an incident report system (which requires getting statements, etc.) and the supervisors also know exactly where to get campus police. We also have a sportsmanship grade, given to each team after each game. You have to have a "B" average to make the playoffs, and you must maintain that grade throughout the tournament. Any grade of "D" or "F" in the tournament disqualifies you from further play. Now, certainly you may have all these things, and certainly there is no guarantee that any of this could have prevented any of this, but just some suggestions in case you do not have any of these. At the university where I have officiated, we have given career suspensions for much less.

I will say that I am glad to see that you are a coordinator that stands up for his officials though. My coordinator is the same way, and it's always great to work for someone you know has got your back. The career suspension is appropriate, and, depending on how the overall team conduct had been, I would consider forfeiting them from the tournament. Also, I'd call the official in, and let him know that I'm behind him 110%. I know that if I were in his shoes, I might be a little shaken up.

NNC,

Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of having experienced officials on games like you do. This year, I have one "patched" official in the class/group of officials -- and she is only 18 and in her first year of officiating; before working these IM games, the highest level of a game she had worked was a 6th grade CYO girls game. Everyone else -- when I say they never touched a whistle before this semester started, there's no exaggeration there -- I had one girl the first day of training ask me -- "Sir, what's a foul line?" Before the games begin, I get two hours of classroom training, and two hours of on court training -- for 28 students. This is the system the university dictates as what they want to do -- it's not my system, nor my boss's. The professor who is my boss and I do the best we can with the time we are allotted, and then continue to teach them as the year progresses.

I also have 128 teams in the entire intramural program. At any given time, I have up to three games going on simultaneously. I don't have the luxury of only assigning my "better, novice" officials to the games. I so wish that I did.

The team this kid was on lost tonight, so they are out of the tournament. Fortunately for the situation, I knew a lot of the kids on the team, and have known them for a couple years. As soon as I walked into the gym, the apologies to me were free-flowing.

As far as the sportsmanship grading system -- that is absolutely a GREAT idea, one that I will pass on to my superiors come Monday morning. The other two supervisors that I work with and I have immediate access to campus security; armed, campus police are a mere radio call away and can be at the gym almost immediately. Of course, though, they cannot be everywhere at all times and can only do so much.

TMP,

It's great that you're doing what you can though. Hopefully, these kids will come back next year, and be better officials, and before you know it, you're officiating will be of no concern. If you want to PM me with an email address, I'd be more than glad to send you the sportsmanship guidelines that we use for grading players.

Another interesting route to explore in this matter is that if the school that this happened in is a state ran institution, then depending on the employment status of the student officials, this act could constitute assulting a state employee. I spent a few seasons as an IM official at OU, which is state ran/funded, and we had a similar instance of a player threatening an official. The player was ejected from the building but waited for the official and decided to throw a sucker punch on the official. Just as the punch landed a campus police officer rounded the corner and arrested the kid on the spot. Case got turned over to the state attorney's office, not the local DA like a normal case would. Not only was the kid out a ton of money for legal expenses, but was found guilty, got hit with a nice fine and something like 5 years probation, all for "assulting a state employee".

Although that sounds "nice," it will accomplish absolutely nothing.

tmp44, make sure this player gets charges. Don't let it go away.

Long before I thought about picking up a whistle...
 

Many years ago when I was in college, I served on the Faculty-Student Judicial Board...a kind of "last appeal" for everything from parking tickets to academic dishonesty. We heard many cases concerning student athletes, but only one intramural case, almost a duplicate of what is described.

Not only did the player get charged by the local prosecutor, the Dean of Students suspended him for the remainder of the semester (no refund of fees) and placed him on academic probation if he re-enrolled the following semester. When he tried to change schools, he found his transcript was marked with all this information and the other schools were also going to place him on academic probation as a condition of enrollment. He appealed to us to overturn the suspension, which we did not. His academic career was severely derailed because he'd lost his temper during a stupid IM basketball game and broke a ref's nose.

TMP, the bottom line is this: the school has got to step in with an additional punishment other than "banned from IM sports" to make students think twice about doing something crazy like this.

IMO, the responsibility of making sure the player gets hit with charges is shared by both tmp44 (as the supervisor) and the official (as the assultee). Considering the situation, the official is shaken up and possibly timid about how far they should go with this and that's where tmp44 comes into play. All the while, let the "school administraitors" be the ones pushing so the official doesn't have to fade any heat on campus. You should really encourage this official that it's the right thing to do. Also, word will travel fast to others involved in the intramural programs and they will know not to assult an official physically or verbally.

Right. Do not let this drop.

Also, I'm sure the University considers the officials their employees. See if there's some way to expel this schmuck for attacking a university employee.

i almost had a similar situation happen when i was doing intramurals some 6-8 years ago. i was lucky in that the supervisor of the facitlity the games were played at was an ex olympic bobsledder -- and by ex I mean by about a year or 2 so the guy was only about 6'4" 230-240 about 3% body fat. 2 players tried to jump me from behind while i was leading and he just grabbed them by their shirts and lifted them and told me to head on home he would deal with it.

turned out he took them to his office, sat them down for about 10 minutes and then made them leave. when they left the 2 guys were balling their eyes out and shaking -- to this day he never told me what he said but I can only imagine :) -- the 2 guys werent exactly tiny either its just that this guy was a beast.

I'll add my voice to the others:

1. Permanent ban from all future intramnural participation in any sport
2. Criminal charges
3. Pursue violation of school code of conduct & resulting penalties

The only way to stop this kind of crap is by sending a clear message.

Tangentially, tmp, you might consider working with your local association to get some training and back-up. It may be that they'd be willing to invest some time and energy as a way to recruit and expand their own horizons.

This is a good idea and I think would be beneficial to both sides.

An observation:

I have played in a lot of Rec ball...I have officiated a lot of Rec ball (earlier in my career)...and I have played a lot of pick up games with no officials.

Guess what...the games with NO OFFICIALS are un-doubtedly a cleaner game and a more sporting game.

WHY? Peer presure maybe... a player usually knows when he commits a violation/foul and the player that commited the violation/foul usually knows he did so...thus, the call your own fouls and violations seem to work themselves out among the players.

I don't know...maybe this IM program would be better served to have a gym supervisor at every game instead of having teenage girls/boys officiating that don't know what end of the whistle to blow. That, IMO, is a receipe for disaster.

Save your money or get some certified officials to volunteer their time for the playoffs...but, maybe just have a "floor supervisor" at the regular season games to keep discipline, rather than trying to call a game with little or no rules knowledge and judgement.

I think they have.

But also, undoubtedly, there will be something that happens, where one team says they rules were improperly applied, and the other team says they weren't. Now, with inexperienced officials, it's possible that they may get the call wrong initially, but at least then you can protest the game based on the rules misinterpretation (we have such a procedure at the university where I referee). Without an official there, you'll never find out what actually happened. Sometimes, with IM ball, guys will develop rivalries, and when they play each other, it can be VERY heated. I think officials are needed

first time posting
 

I had a similar situation happen to me this year.

Situation happened where a team had accumulated its 3rd technical of the game (which meant an automatic forfeit). Needless to say, things got a little crazy and one of the players ended up bumping me and confronting me whilst I was trying to get away. He then continued to verbal threaten my partner and me to the point where I ended up getting a police escort back home. Ended up filing charges on the kid. Last I heard, the kid was arrested, banned from intramurals and from the gym facility permanently, and might possibly be kicked out of school (wasn't his first offense).

All I can tell you is to make sure your official goes through with the criminal charges as others have said. And also make sure that your officials know they have your back. I can tell you it was that much easier to go through with filing charges when I knew that my supervisors had my back.

Recent Trial
 

In February I had jury duty and was picked as a juror on the following trial:

Two hispanic fraternities at the UW had an organized tackle football game one weekend.

After a long running play everyone turned around to see one guy sitting on
top of his opponent and beating him up.

The bottom guy received a ruptured ear drum, broken eye socket, and cuts/bruises.

Since it was on UW property he was prosecuted by the State of Washington.

We found him guilty of Assault-3.

I agree, it must stop.

Fans, players, officials....if they get violent then they should be prosecuted to the fullest.

Jr .....
 

From Old School: "Is how come you get to continue to post sh!t about others and it is never question(ed)."

Old School: For your information, I have questioned Jurassic Referee many times, especially in regard to advantage/disadvantage involving both fouls and violations. In some cases one of us was able to convince the other one to come over to their side, in other cases, we were able to reach a compromise, and in other cases we have agreed to disagree. For the most part, we have been able to stay away from name calling, because we try to act in a professional manner.

The reason why Jurassic Referee is seldom questioned is because he knows and understands the rules, period. He also knows and understands the case book, and handbook. When questioned in a professional manner, he is more than willing to patiently back up his side with appropriate rule book or case book citations.

I cringe every time Jurassic Referee gets involved with name calling, he does seem to have a short fuse, but in many cases it's two-sided. I can't stand the name calling and personal attacks on this Forum. I wish the moderaters would be a little less tolerant of such threads and posts. I often think about removing the Forum from my favorites list, but I can't find a better basketball officiating website, with such outstanding and knowledgeable officials, anywhere on the internet.