I will purposely get close to those in the first row then just roll my eyes at them. Not many say much when I'm up close. Six-5, 250 has some advantages. :D

I haven't been doing this for a really long time, but I have never even came close to having a fan removed. The things in the OP wouldn't even register with me. Like everyone else has said, I think the stuff people pop off about is funny. There are other officials who take it very personally and get game management involved at the drop of a hat, which I don't understand.

I can relate to that!

(Okay, just the latter part.)

Anyway, to answer the OP, I draw the line at profanity, threats, or anything else inappropriate toward the kids. That's about it.

I've probably had 5 or so removed in the 11 years I've been where I am now. I'd bet 2-3 of them are from the same school -- the best thing I can say about it is "it's 10 minutes from the house."

You have some other advantages. Just sayin.

Peace

Do you mean if the official were to make certain to see and call every foul and infraction committed by the kids of these fathers?

To answer the OP's question, "Where is the line for parents?" ...

They don't have one. Fans are plummeting to new depths on a game-by-game basis.

As one who advocates what APG said, and not sure if you're serious, I'll answer as if you are.

No, I mean if it affects the official's ability to focus on the game.

Seriously, I've worked a couple of AAU tournaments which have a rule that if a parent gets removed, then his/her kid leaves as well. The kid gets pulled off the court immediately and does not get to finish the game.

A simple reminder to the parent of this rule has been quite effective.

WELL STATED!! Really puts the whole thing of parental behavior in perspective!

In my experience, parent behavior problems exists more at AAU and Rec league settings..Many times there is no game management on hand and the parents feel that can track you down and confront you when you are leaving the gym or in the parking lot! 99% of my incidents happened in those type of environments.

With AAU and Rec leagues the parents are paying the freight for little Johnny and Mary to play, so many times the head of these leagues would dump a ref instead of control a parent

A friend was asking about idiot fans and how I put up with them. I said it's funny but 1500 fans booing and yelling stuff doesn't bother me. I find it more difficult to ignore the one guy in a quiet gym. Having said that, I can't think of anything to do or say that is more effective than ignoring him/her/them. I take pride in what I do and I take pride in the fact that I can stand close to someone who is yelling at me and pretend that I don't hear him.

Rarely have I dealt with fans. I did tell a parent to cut it out when he was heckling the catcher (baseball example) of the opposing team. This was 12-13 year olds. The idea of a 40 year man heckling a 13 year player did not sit well with me. He never said boo again. I also addressed a fan who heckling us after he swore. I said "keep it clean". He preceded to heckle me profusely after that. But then he said "I didn't swear that time". All I could do was laugh.

Amen to that. 1500 fans... you can't hear individual voices anyway. The one guy in the gym of 25 spectators is the one that'll get heard... and in my experience they'll usually be shamed into shutting up eventually.

Remember: they're not yelling at you, they're yelling at the shirt.

I did, once, explain to a group of "Three seconds" parents why I wasn't calling 3-second violations, it was an 11U game, and these parents were yelling for 3 second violations when the ball was still in the backcourt, during a throw-in, and in the shot-miss-rebound-shot-miss-rebound-shot-rinse-repeat sequences we all know and love. During a timeout, when I was standing right in front of them at the throw-in spot, I calmly turned around and asked "would you like to know why I'm not calling 3 seconds?"... I quickly explained to them the rule, and nobody said anything the rest of the game.

We've acutally had to remove a number of fans this year (I say we I mean game mangement) the schools in our area were asked to come up with codes of conduct for spectators and post them. Some schools are very general while others are very specific. In some of the more specific cases schools even will have GM remove fans before anyone else has said anything.

We were in a gym two weekends ago with a code up that had rules to ) be supportive of all fans, players, coaches and officials and as a seperate rule b) to not question the judgement of officials or coaches.

In the game before ours a fan was removed by GM for saying "Hey Ref, that's a travel." In other gyms I've seen fans get up and start talking directly to players/officials with no repercussions. Mixed bag!