[OnACoffeeBreak]

The basketball thing can be such a shit show. As a parent of a kid that fell in love with basketball, did travel AAU basketball and ended up playing for a D3 college, I've experienced parents at all levels showing their full ass.

Examples... Their coach at a rec league for 9 year olds was assaulted by the opposing team's coach at the end of the game. I've seen the cops being called to protect the refs and parents being escorted out of the game after threatening the refs. It goes on and on.

All that's to say that the steaks don't seem to matter. Folks are passionate in a disproportionate way when their children are involved.

[FireBeyond]

> Examples... Their coach at a rec league for 9 year olds was assaulted by the opposing team's coach at the end of the game. I've seen the cops being called to protect the refs and parents being escorted out of the game after threatening the refs. It goes on and on.

Oh yes, I lost track of the number of times I was threatened with being met in the parking lot after a game.

We never had to call the cops to eject parents - usually all it took was "That's fine, we'll just end the game as a forfeit to the other team" before you got some poor beleaguered kid saying "Dad, just go to the car. Please."

I quit (and this was probably 20 years ago) when I reported a player for "attempted striking a referee" during a fight, when he swung a closed fist at the head of one of my partner referees, who instinctively pulled back. The league believed that calling it attempted striking (which had a potential ban of 5+ years) would be "excessive" and downgraded it to "attempted assault of a referee". My argument was that the player -was- attempting to punch the referee (caught on video and all) and that the referee's reflex in dodging the contact shouldn't downgrade the severity of the offence.