Football Dad -- "Late Hit"

[tjones1]

Anyone see the video of the father running out onto the field after the play was over and knock down a player because apparently this player put a late hit on his son earlier in the game?

[JRutledge]

Yes I have. It was awful. I hope this dad gets jailed, sued and thrown under the jail.

Peace

[RoyGardner]

Video should be here:

http://www.cnn.com/video/partners/rs...oach.hits.kcra

There's also a link on the CNNSI homepage at:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/

[SanDiegoSteve]

That guy is so screwed. What a bozo. No offense to Bozo.

[Ed Hickland]

This Bozo is just an example of what has happened to kids sports.

There was a penalty flag on the field but this Bozo didn't think it was enough and after all his team was winning. Hope the league forfeited the game.

[OverAndBack]

YouTube link.

Apparently there was about a 20 minute parent brawl afterwards.

What do we, as officials, do in that situation?

[Taz]

I think that they should bann all parents from youth sports. If they want to see the game buy the video.

[Rich]

If a brawl of this size broke out, I'd be tempted to leave and let the police sort it out

[Bob M.]

REPLY: As for the question of what to do when a brawl breaks out (just "take numbers" or actively get involved in breaking it up), Alan Goldberger, legal consultant to NASO and a frequent contributor to REFEREE magazine in the area of sports and the law, responded to my e-mail asking his opinion regarding these two strategies. He says,

"As to your question, conventional wisdom isn't so wise. In fact, it is a crock.
Short answer: to 'take numbers' is a major copout. Liability risk is
100x greater while you stand around, "losing control of the game." My
feeling is that doing anything less than taking every action possible to
prevent or shorten a fight is indefensible. Key, in my mind, is good
mechanics, nailing taunting/baiting the first time, not turning your
back, and not leaving opponents unsupervised during dead ball periods.
Football, any sport. If you let them fight, it's the eyes of those
present, it's your fault, 99% of the time."

[waltjp]

Bob,

Alan's reply addresses ways to prevent this from happening but doesn't give any advice on what to do it things do get out of hand. I'm all for stepping in if I can handle the situation and trying to prevent things from spiraling out of control but what happens when the number of combatants outnumbers the officials? At some point we have to consider our own safety too.

Walt

[OverAndBack]

I'm beginning to think there's no easy answer.

Try to break it up and risk being complicit in an injury.

Stand aside and risk being hit with a sin of omission.

Maybe that's why we get the big bucks.