The headline itself wasn’t the shocking part. If you follow youth sports at all, you know these kinds of incidents — as abhorrent and despicable as they are — have somehow become a weekly occurrence at ballfields and in gymnasiums across the country.
This time, it happened in Branchburg. This time, it was a parent throwing a punch at an umpire. This time, it was a 72-year-old man who ended up with his jaw wired shut following surgery because he had the audacity to make a call in an 13-and-under baseball game that some moron didn’t like.
That was awful enough. But it was this account from the U.S. Amateur Baseball League’s Facebook page that truly made your stomach turn:
Even as police and EMTs were providing medical attention to the umpire, other parents from the same team were heard shouting expletives at the umpire and saying things like, “He deserved it.”
Read that again. A senior citizen making a few bucks calling balls and strikes in a meaningless baseball game was lying on his back receiving medical attention, the other parents weren’t holding down the assailant and calling the cops. They were cheering him on.
What the hell is wrong with these people
“I wish I knew the answer,” Barry Mano, the founder of the National Association of Sports Officials. I’ve always said that sports is simply life with the volume turned up, so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. We get these reports every week here. Every week!”
Mano rattles a list off the top of his head. A softball umpire in Laurel, Miss., ended up with a black eye following a dispute with a parent. A baseball ump in Sacramento, Calif., was attacked in a parking lot by a mob of spectators after a close play at the plate. A top NCAA referee in Council Bluffs, Iowa detailed a profane verbal confrontation between a parent and a player while working an AAU game. All of these have happened since an NJ Advance Media story detailed the growing ugliness at youth sporting events since the pandemic.
It isn’t just the high-profile incidents, either. Chances are, you’ve seen or heard something that made your jaw drop if your kids play youth sports. And if you’re a referee? I can comfortably take out the “chances are” part out of that sentence. I know you have. The fact that so many officials are turning in their whistles, leading to scheduling nightmares that figure only to get worse, is all the proof required.
“It gets down to parents/fans,” Mano said. “Virtually all of these are happening at the youth and rec level. This isn’t a pro problem or a college problem or a high school problem. We as the parents-slash-adults need to step up here and say, ‘Enough already!’”
That, really, is the only hope. These headlines about insane youth sports parents need to be a clarion call to the rest of us. The sane ones.
We are the ones who have to pull an angry mother aside when she starts yelling at an official before the abuse escalates. We are the ones who have to remind an irate father that the point of youth sports is teaching values that will help later in life, and acting like a jerk on the sidelines sends the exact opposite message to our children
We are the best hope to keep our kids’ recreational activities from vanishing off their schedules — and don’t think for a minute that this is an overstatement. Mano said a colleague at the highest level of officiating thinks the solution is to have a “National Day of No Officiating” when all the referees across the country essentially go on strike to call attention to this problem.
He called a walkout the “nuclear option,” but disappearing referees and umpires is already happening across the country. John Scoras, a former minor-league ballplayer who has officiated games in New Jersey for 45 years, said he has heard from several long-time colleagues this spring who have decided that enough is enough.
“For the majority of them, they just don’t feel like getting yelled at any more,” the 68-year-old Scoras said. “And I can’t blame them.”
Scoras has never had a physical confrontation with a fan, but he acknowledges that this might have more to do with the fact he is 6-foot-2 and 250 pounds than anything else. But this spring, he said an irate father followed him into the parking lot after a Shore Conference baseball game, shouting obscenities and personal insults after his son’s team lost a close game.
The ump held up his hand like a traffic cop and warned the father not to get any closer, and the confrontation ended without escalating. Still, with behavior only worsening since the start of the pandemic, Scoras believes the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association needs to do more to prevent spectators from losing control and punishing the ones that do.
Before each game, the NJSIAA requires that officials read a statement about unsportsmanlike behavior to each participating coach before games, but Scoras said, “We read that and you might as well throw it right into the garbage can.” Few listen
Mark Bitar, who assigns referees in North Jersey and officiates in other sports, supports legislation proposed by N.J. assemblywoman Vicky Flynn (R-Monmouth) that would aim to deter bad behavior through punitive measures. Mano agrees that stepping up security and enforcement is the only way to solve the problem because, he said, “what we’re doing now is not working.”
Maybe that is the only way. But here’s another idea: The next time an angry father confronts an umpire, maybe the other parents should try dragging him off the field instead of cheering him on.
Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com
