Anybody know a good lawyer

[SmokeEater]

Originally Posted by Snaqwells

Billy, you have every right to do what you suggest you would. And I suspect a lot of parents might; especially at that level.

However, sometimes parents have to be willing to suffer consequences for actions they deem appropriate in spite of the rules. If I were running something like this rec league, and we had a rule like colt is proposing, I'd only enforce it if the parent became abusive towards the officials. IMO, this particular Dad may well have found himself in the parking lot without warning.

I'll give an example. 4 years ago this past fall, my younger brother had sarcoma in his chest. After the initial biopsy, they went in and cleared a little more space around the original tissue to ensure they had it all. The morphine sent him into respiratory arrest in the middle of that first night, and he was moved to ICU. The first night, Dad insisted he (or I) be allowed to stay in the ICU room with him, against hospital policy. They were going to refuse, but Dad called their bluff with the only hand he had. They were going to either let him stay or have him arrested. They acquiesced. My point, he knew their rules, and he didn't think they were necessarily bad. He was, however, prepared as a father to ignore them and do what he thought best for his son; even if there were consequences.

BTW, if your kid is seriously hurt, he's likely leaving the gym for treatment anyway, so being told to leave the gym would only be a formality.

Snaqs and Billy your are both right on the money with your comments. IMO both are justifiable. Iirc, there are already rules in place to stop someone from berating and addressing an official inappropriately so enforcing the rule is all that would be needed, IMO. I am an EMT and certified as a sports trainer and also do not hesitate to assist at a game (football, hockey and basketball) when I see fit. My youngest is now 13 yrs old and I have learned to use some descretion about when help is actually needed. Like was said by this age you can let a little more go. To each his/her own I guess.

[rockyroad]

I also agree with both Billy and Snaqer...I coach HS football, and my sons are on the team. My Senior son this past season took a vicious hit (legal) on a crackback type block and went down like a bag of rags and didn't move. As soon as the whistle sounded to end the play, I was out there. He was OK - just had his bell rung really loudly (no concussion or anything). Anyway, as I was walking off the field with him, the White Hat stopped me and told me that next time I had better wait for him to call me onto the field or he would flag me for USC. My response was to ask him if he even saw the kid go down - and he said no. So I told him to do what he had to do, I was going to take care of my players...I'm willing to take that consequence to make sure my players are OK.

[JugglingReferee]

In the HS games I've done where a parent comes rushing onto the court/field, it has always been during a dead ball period. I've got no problem with this behavoir. I always do the "beckon" mechanic to show that I'm allowing them to enter the court/field.

If a coach really wishes to earn points via a technical foul because an opponent's player's parent came onto the court, then I will ask him if s/he wishes to be the cause of a technical foul if it were his/her injured child that s/he wished to attend to.

[Mark Padgett]

Our local kids rec league has as its number one rule - player safety. We tell this to all the coaches and refs before the season starts. We don't care if it's a one point game with 3 seconds to go and a kid is driving for the winning layup, if a player seems seriously injured on the floor, we stop the game to attend to him or her.

As for parents coming out of the stands, if a kid seems really hurt, we have no problem with a parent coming out. That's a million times more important than some silly game.