As a rabid sports fan who grew up playing organized sports and later worked as a sportswriter covering all kinds of athletic events, I am well-acquainted with public opinion on officiating.
The recent criticisms that NFL referees were biased when calling Kansas City Chiefs games and favored the squad from Missouri proves that some things never change. In this case, it’s people constantly complaining about referees, umpires, line judges – anyone involved in regulating athletic contests.
My friends will tell you I am anything but a Chiefs fan, so I am not defending the refs out of loyalty to a team I support. In the ‘70s, when I first got interested in the NFL, I rooted for the Oakland Raiders because Grandpa Carbery did. He liked George Blanda, a placekicker-reserve quarterback who played in the NFL until deep into his 40s. We loved when the coach brought Blanda off the bench to play quarterback and rally Oakland. The Chiefs were the Raiders’ main rivals.
I also supported our local St. Louis Cardinal football squad, but because they were terrible except for a few short years, everybody I knew had a second team to pull for when the playoffs rolled around. Most years, the Gridbirds were finished by the last game of the regular season.
Getting back to my point about officiating, NFL refs took umbrage at the online comments accusing the refs of purposely making calls to benefit the Chiefs.
I guess it’s human nature for fans pulling for a particular team to get riled up about an official’s call they feel was a mistake. However, just because someone splices together a few of those questionable calls and posts them does not mean there is a conspiracy among officials to cheat your team. For all the examples those fans raise, the fans from the opposing team could point to similar calls going against their favorite gang of athletes.
I am not saying officials are perfect. I will never forgive umpire Don Denkinger, now deceased, for calling Kansas City Royal Jorge Orta safe at first at a crucial moment of Game Six of the 1985 World Series. I feel that call cost the Cards a championship (yes, I know other factors were involved), and I never stopped resenting it.
However, I did not accuse Denkinger of blowing the call out of a bias. Incompetence, yes, but not bias.
During my years of playing, watching and reporting on sports, I have also seen lots of parents display bad behavior at little league or high school games, often associated with their opinions about the umps or referees skills.
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone yell, “Hey, ump (or ref), you’re missing a great game!”
No one is more partisan than a parent watching his or her child compete in some sport. I don’t care if the kid jumps offsides by a yard before the ball is snapped or gets thrown out at home plate by the same distance, a parent will vehemently protest a call that goes against his or her offspring. This, of course, leads to the parent berating the official, sometimes yelling some salty language.
I’ve seen mothers who were holding an infant curse at officials who dared make a call against their kids’ teams. I’ve heard grandparents scream at an opposing player in words that surely would have offended the youngster if he or she had been listening to the crowd.
That is not the only negative behavior I’ve seen adults display during youth sports competitions.
Have you ever seen a dad coaching a team act like he was going to hit an official? I have. I’ve seen men pushing each other over their kids’ games. What a terrific example to show 10-year-olds.
There have been stories in the national news about parents threatening to or actually attacking teenage officials. That’s disgusting. A young ump or ref trying his or her best to officiate a game should not be subjected to verbal abuse, much less physical abuse.
Some of the most volatile situations involving parents take place at high school football games where the section designated for visiting fans is near the section for the home team’s fans. In these cases, you’ll have a dad on one side complaining bitterly that a lineman on the other team is holding on every play. That kid’s dad sitting an aisle away might start hollering, “You’re doing a great job, ref!”
These might not seem like words of war, yet I have witnessed such exchanges get nastier and nastier as the clock ticked away.
I have seen news stories about parents of athletes getting into physical altercations. While writing this column, I looked up one of those stories I remembered that involved two men with kids on the same hockey team get into a fistfight during a practice in 2000, with one dad killing the other. The story said they argued over rough play during the practice. Unbelievable.
Sadly, parents continue to act this way. Last fall a parent was shot and killed on a parking lot after a youth basketball game in Chicago. It’s not clear if the shooting was related to the game, but that’s how it appears. It doesn’t really matter, though. Someone is dead and the killing occurred in the vicinity of youngsters.
Parents, please remember. It’s only a game.
Those words would mean more to people if they knew the ultra-competitive nature of the guy typing them. However, since I love my kids and understand that other people love theirs, I did my best to keep my tongue in check when I attended their games.