American referees leaving the field as wave of violence engulfs children’s games

The New York Prospects’ coach Jerry Otero started swearing at an umpire he felt had missed a call against the opposing pitcher in a Little League baseball game in Branchburg, New Jersey. When James Neely, the official, walked across to explain his decision, Otero punched him in the face, breaking his jaw. The 72-year-old crumpled to the ground and while he lay there, concussed, some Prospects’ parents watching on, taunted, “you deserved it” and “you got what you deserved”. The coach, whose own son was playing that summer’s day, is awaiting trial on charges of third-degree assault. The teams involved were participating in a 13 and Under tournament.

After the buzzer sounded to signal the end of an unremarkable Amateur Athletic Union basketball match in the gym of the Stronghold Christian Church, just outside Atlanta, Georgia, 10 players from the losing Dream Team Elite began to chase the referee, Sidney Freeman, around the court. When they started throwing digs at him, he went to defend himself but, eventually, they toppled the 6ft 5in veteran ref to the floor and laid into him with kicks and punches. He ended up with 30 stitches to his head and ear. The boys were 8th graders, meaning they were between 12-and 13-years-old.

Following an ice hockey game at a rink in Vail, Colorado, 64-year-old Ron Groothedde was confronted by an irate father, angry at aspects of his refereeing performance. Originally from Canada and with experience of officiating every level of the sport, from the youngest kids to the pros, Groothedde saw his assailant pick up a large can of Lysol cleaning spray, and worried he was going to throw it at him. Instead, Aliaksei Khatsianevich sprayed the chemicals directly into his eyes. He was later arrested. That hockey game involved 14-year-old boys.

A trio of random samples there of the epidemic of assaults being committed against referees and umpires across America every week.

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[ ‘We nearly lost our boy due to men who needed the under-12 win to make them feel they were great’ ]

[ ‘Underage team sport is all about winning. It’s heart-breaking to see our son ignored and excluded’ ]

The most cursory Google search turns up hundreds of such cases, each more disturbing than the last. It doesn’t matter the sport. It doesn’t matter the state. It’s happening everywhere and to such an extent that those running children’s leagues in every code all report the same issue. They cannot get people to officiate games anymore. No wonder.

In a development depressingly familiar to Irish sporting authorities, coaches, parents and, sometimes, players behave so badly long-serving refs are hanging up their whistles, fed up with the abuse, realising the peril isn’t worth the pitiful amounts they earn per game.

Desperate to recruit replacements, leagues have increased pay only to discover most newcomers resign once they figure out the vilification they are expected to endure. Every single time out. The dystopian reality of children’s sport. Fun and games? Not anymore.

In some states, “Friday Night Lights”, the almost sacred tradition of high school football games in autumn, now take place on Thursdays and Saturdays too. Why? Because there aren’t enough referees to do all the matches in one evening anymore.

Fifty thousand high school refs have quit since 2019, and 80 per cent of those who sign up to replace them leave within two years. No money is worth enduring vitriol from demented mothers and fathers who abandon all sense of decency and propriety once they hear a whistle blow and see their child enter the fray. The way such rabid parents go after young, inexperienced officials is particularly depressing.

[ Seán Moran: No point in intensifying punishments on referee incidents if you can’t make sanctions stick ]

“I think that the higher financial stakes at the top of the game have had a knock-on effect further down – at youth level,” says Ian Plenderleith, author of Reffing Tales, and somebody who has refereed soccer in the United States and Germany. “Parents, coaches and players all harbour unrealistic hopes of being among that tiny percentage to make it to the top, while the theatrical conduct of top-level coaches under constant pressure to win is mimicked every weekend in amateur and youth soccer.

“The media play a part too – cameras on the coaches at all times constantly replaying in slo-mo every single emotional reaction to every play like it was the most important part of the game. Coaches at the lower level see that and think it’s the normal way to behave.”

None of this is normal, yet it just seems to have become accepted. To dip into the coverage of kids’ sports nationwide is to glimpse a very sick society. A ref at an Under-8 hockey game needing a police escort to escape the baying crowd. A 19-year-old officiating an Under-10 soccer match having to run the gauntlet of angry parents calling him “a piece of shit” at the final whistle. A woman wearing a “Mother of the Year” shirt punching a softball umpire in the face after she was asked to leave her 12-year-old daughter’s game for yelling profanities at opposing players.

In some states, local politicians are considering introducing legislation to make attacking sports officials a more serious offence. As if there aren’t already actual laws in place to punish those who commit assault.

While the search for solutions goes on, refs are disappearing at a pace and, in a related note, 70 per cent of American children walk away from organised sport by the age of 13. Maybe one day we will end up with no kids’ games at all. Where would the parents go to vent their frustration at the world then?