Where is the line for parents?
 

Last week, Girl's Varsity, 2 top 10 teams gearing up for playoffs. Old school gym, and bleachers are right on top of court. I never had issues with parent's comments before..."3 in the key!", "over the back", etc....east to ignore.

2 dads, sitting midcourt, a few feet away from the court, not a full gym, so they are easily heard, yelling, "You're horrible!", and "Brutal!" My main issue is how loud they were, and that it was only the 2nd quarter, and I didn't want to hear it all night...the coach hadn't said a word and the other coach was the one in our ear!

I know we are encouraged to not listen to the crowd, but where is the line? I understand what I signed up for, and I know the parents are irrational, so I don't take it personal. Suggestions?

My opinion, that's not even close to crossing the line for me. Your proverbial line may vary.

Agreed. Not nearly enough for me.

At what point does persistence and ongoing commentary come into play..getting closer to the line?

I leave that to game management, but if you find it's distracting you, you can have GM give them an ultimatum. Frankly, I've learned to laugh at them. And I do it on the court.

My favourite is when the complain about something and I'd like to say "that's the NBA rule", but sometimes they want a call that doesn't exist at any level. :cool:

Or, "they changed that rule - 15 years ago".

Your line will vary from mine...it's been suggested that if a fan's behavior starts affecting your officiating, then get game management to deal with the fan.

Me personally, the comments from the OP don't even register to me

I agree, and I know we can't win against the parents, so it's always better to ignore them, but the level of their screaming, and the proximity of them to the court just put me over the edge. For the first time in my short 3 year career, I had the administration go over and sit with them.

Shut them up until he left them at halftime, then I had to get the comments like, "your ears are better than your eyes!" which was pretty funny, but they were still acting like complete jerks.

In hindsite, I would have ignored them, but at the time, I just didn't feel like hearing that crap all night. Live and learn. I don't have the rep for looking for trouble, and I am trying to move up in our association, but I wonder how a more experienced ref would have taken that? What about, "You Suck!" Do you let that go?

I hear much worse. And if you stay with it long enough, you will too.

If you can't take the heat, this isn't the business for you. You will be threatened and possibly worse.

I had a parent invite me outside after the game...I did a big game last week where the home team was upset by an unranked team, parents were yelling, you'll be doing girls 6th grade tomorrow, yeah, because their team got out scored 13-1 in the 4th Q, it's my fault. BTW, they were 1 for 6 from the FT line in the 4th. lost by 2.

Unless they use profanity, I pretty much ignore the morons.

"You suck" from a fan wouldn't register at all to me.

Fans make me laugh. I cannot think of many times I have ever had to even think about throwing a fan for comments, let alone getting upset by their comments. I have been known to laugh at them and make them look stupid when they are so close to the court, but unless they say something to the players or teams, I pay little attention to fans. Ignore them and move on.

Peace

Please, go on. Do tell...

As others have said I find fans who choose to behave this way comical and have to keep myself from literally laughing at them on the court.

On occasion when a fan is being particularly loud I may accidentally make eye contact and smile at them.

But for the most part I just ignore the ignorance. All most of them want is a reaction. They want their 15 seconds of fame and to try and rattle you and/or visibly affect the way you are calling the game. When you get game management on them I almost see it as a sign of weakness that they are really getting to you.

Obviously there are some situations that cross the line and sometimes we all get in the mood where we just don't feel like hearing it. But I think you're better off just ignoring it or cursing them out in your head. I hear a really stupid comment sometimes and I just say "STFU dumb arse" in my head. Makes me feel better and works for me.

Comments like "you suck" or anything mentioned in the OP don't even come close to something I would think about or feel the need to have game management involved.

Maybe it doesn't bother us, but...
 

I agree with everything said by the other vets but I'm now remembering the only time I had a parent removed from a gym. Either 8th or 9th grade girls about 15 years ago in GA. Dad wasn't being profane but it was similar to the OP: the only extremely loud person in a pretty empty gym. I didn't make a big scene. Just nodded to GM and those folks took care of the rest.

After Dad was led out at halftime I heard one of the players say, "Did they kick him out?" One of her teammates said, "Yeah." The girl said, "Good."

It was her father. :)

There is an occaion that you can say something to one of these fools during a dead ball something that embarrasses them. There are multiple ways to do this as they often say something to you that opens the door, but you can make them look silly by your response or they realize that their behavior might not be a good idea to continue.

The most effective way is what a couple of former partners called "Playing the game." They would point out the fool that was usually very over the top yelling and screaming. And what we would do was bring a partner with you and look in the stands directly at the troublemaker, and start talking to each other and usually nothing about the fan and the fan would realize they were caught and stop yelling or their wife or husband or kid would tell them to "shut up." One time it worked so well, the guy left on his own without us using GM to remove them. The bottom line is you do this very sparely and you do it when you read the situation properly. And the fewer people in a crowd the better. If it is very crowded then it does not work as well or might be harder to figure out who is doing all the yelling.

Peace

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!

"Not a problem, buddy. Just let me stop at my car first to get my gun." :cool:

My partner did the exact same thing once in a rec league game, though his line was, "All right! Who needs a rules clinic?!"

Not only was it effective, when he had an actual three-seconds violation (from the trail) instead of signalling, he whistled, pointed to the crowd and said, "What's the call?"

The small crowd exclaimed gleefully, "THREE SECONDS!!!"

What fans? What parents? I see no fans or parents...

(Except that one time on walked on the court...)

I remember asking a similar question about fan interaction when I first started out...this one below stuck out for me:

Unless she was hot, right?:D

If that was the case, I'd be getting something else out of my car. Then - I'd be putting something (or someone) else into my car. :)

Had scheduled 3 games in an 8th Gr boys Holiday tourney in a "pit" type gym. When I arrived in street clothes, I heard/saw the fans of both teams (of the game before mine) yelling at both officials- coaches were doing same.
I sat to watch the "fun", and eventually 1 coach was T'd, then the other teams coach a few minutes later, and I'm thinking, OK -they're taking care of business.

During the next qtr, one ref blows his whistle, points into the stands and does the baseball ump "You, Yer outa here!" thing. Fan grabs coat and walks toward the door, game continues, until the ref sees that fan still watching the game from the other side- stops game again, yells that the game wont start until fan leaves.

I go get dressed, call my (never met before) partner, leaving a where are you voicemail, walk down to floor as players shaking hands, 10 min clock running till my game starts, and approach refs from the game just finished, with me commenting on their "interesting" game and hoping that mine go smoother-if partner arrives on time.

Yep, the ref that tossed the fan is staying for 1 more game (with me). He mentions being a rookie, so I take him aside, telling him to ignore fans, never doing what he did, but use GM if necessary. He agrees.

Fans were "excited" in our losers bracket tourney game, and at game end after teams have shook, and fans are leaving, again 10 min till next game, I ask partner sitting by the scoretable if he wants a water, cause I do. Concessions are around a corner, and when I come back in view of the floor I see 4 fans have him surrounded, up against the endline wall, all pointing and yelling. I drop the waters, run over, arriving at the same time as GM, get in between and finally shoo those fans away.

Back at the table, I apologize for leaving him alone, and ask what happened. He says a fan gave him a dirty look, so he pointed and yelled a warning to that fan.
All I thought at that point, was I had a new partner walking in then, and I was done with that guy...

The REST of the story:
 

...your new partner is the parent that was thrown out of previous game, right?:eek: