This I completely agree with. But I'll stand up to any parent or coach out there who tries to tell me I need to get "control" over the players. That's not my job. That's the job of the players themselves.

True... unfortunately, in this case the fans were right.

The crew was not prepared to manage the rough play. After all, we are the only thing keeping the game fair and enforcing the rules... otherwise it is just a pickup game.

So if the red player in play #5 had been seriously injured on that play (and you were the official in that game) this would be your defense in the lawsuit that would probably take place?

"Sorry your honor, but I don't have any control over what that player did"

Really?

We certainly do control what players do if the earlier penalties that should have been levied would have DQ'd the player. They could not have been left in the game to commit the rest of the fouls....the officials had the control to make that happen and didn't choose to exercise it.

Which is why seeing stuff like this frustrates me as it makes your job and my job harder in the long run.

This is pretty laughable. I'd like to see a case of an official being successfully sued because he/she called a common foul as opposed to an intentional/flagrant foul on a player who got injured.

Show me one, then I'll respond to your outlandish hypothetical.

I agree with Fiasco to a point. Ultimately, we DO NOT control the individual actions of players and they are responsible for what they do on the court. This is why, as I stated earlier, that one of my biggest pet peeves is when people say, "you're gonna get somebody hurt out there."

In a court of law, a plaintiff would have to prove some form of negligence on the part of the game officials. In this video, I feel very strongly that the offficials were negligent (not necessarily in a legal sense but in an officiating sense) in dealing with #34's actions. There is a clear pattern of behavior that they allowed to continue and escalate.

But say foul #5 occurred first or a kid is injured on the first hard foul of the game. This is not the fault of the officials. There is an inherent risk involved in playing sports. Save for the Orlando Brown-Jeff Triplete incident in the NFL, I have never seen a player hurt as the direct result of an officials actions.

To a point, this particular discussion in this part of the thread is being boiled down to semantics, particularly Camron's last post.

I think we can all agree that statements like the one at the end of your post quoted above are pure horse poo and we all grow weary at some time or another of having to hear it.

Does it matter the validity if you have to pay legal fees to defend yourself? This is why I have a NASO policy... there are plenty of nutty parents out there who would do something like this. Make sure you are covered. For $100 a year you get legal coverage from NASO. A bargain if you ever were to need it.

You are right... we cannot FORCE a player to play nice. But if he wants to play, then he better be there to play basketball, not be a goon. Usually getting sat on the bench due to foul trouble or disqualification is a powerful motivator.

Ok...check out Pantalowe v. Lenape Valley Regional High School...New Jersey Superior Court. Found this one in less than 30 seconds of internet searching. Not laughable and not outlandish.

Wrestling official was named as co-defendant in a case where the wrestler was paralyzed, claiming the injury occurred because the official allowed an illegal hold to be applied and did not stop the action. Official and his insurance ended up settling before it went to trial.

In today's litigation-happy environment, you honestly believe that there are no lawyers out there who would take a case based on this video (assuming someone had been injured)?

Now you're just changing your argument to fit the facts you've found. Your debating skills need some work.

Your argument was not that you could find yourself in a potential lawsuit. Of course a parent can sue if they really want to. That's beside the point. Your argument was that you would not be able to successfully defend yourself in the situation brought about by the video in question.

Comparing a case where a wrestling official has the power to step in and prevent a wrestling move from taking place while its taking place is wholly different from a basketball official who stands on the sidelines and watches play unfold from 5 to sometimes up to 20 feet away. I have no control over the players' movements from that far away. I'm sorry, but I'm not fast enough (or prescient enough, even) to know when that type of "hard foul" is going to occur, meaning I can't step in and prevent it from happening, as the wrestling official could have done in the case you cited.

Back to the drawing board. Try again.

Nope...the case revolved around the fact that the official did not properly apply the rules. It isn't a different scenario - it's the same. It's all based on the negligence of the officials because they did not properly apply the rules of the contest.

Nice try on your part, but not good enough.

You keep right on trying to make this about my debate skills. I will simply say that if you honestly believe that there is no lawyer out there who could make a case for an injured player and his family based on this video evidence, then you are sadly mistaken.

You're confusing absolute control over a person's every action with what officials generally call "controlling a game."

If I DQ a kid who commits a flagrant foul, then I'm controlling the game. He won't be back on the floor that night, will he?

And if I call an intentional foul on a kid who uses excessive force, I'm using the tools at my disposal to control the game. Will his next foul be excessive or even flagrant? Perhaps: and then I'll address that, in order to continue to control the game.

I regard this matter as part of good officiating, independent of whether officials who fail to control their games are more likely to be sued.

You can say I'm mistaken all you want, but you've still yet to prove how I'm mistaken. You've produced some article that is tangentially related, but not really. You're taking a case that is about a wrestling referee watching a player put an illegal hold on a player and recklessly allowing that particular hold to continue and trying to apply it to a situation that isn't even remotely related.

If you want to make an apples to apples comparison, you would have to compare that wrestling case to a basketball official who sees a player applying an illegal hold to a players arm, calls nothing, and then that player breaks his arm, all the while the official never blows the whistle.

Remember that an official's action has to be proven in court to be reckless or intentional to be actionable. Show me that same video where you have officials swallowing their whistles on every play and I'll agree with you.