Adult behavior major contributor to referee shortages, unsafe environment

If you don’t favor the sports pages, you might have missed the girls’ wrestling team saga at Edmond North High School. And you perhaps have not given deep thought to its significance.

The Oklahoma Secondary Sports Association suspended the team for the remainder of the season. The team is unhappy about that because they’re quite good and in the running for the state championship.

The rule that says if a team, players, coaches or spectators commit an egregious unsportsmanlike act twice, they’re out for the year. The Huskies second violation was a wrestler’s father getting kicked out for swearing at an official because he didn’t like the call.

He defended his behavior to The Oklahoman: “It was nothing crazy,” he said. “I didn’t target the ref.”

The same parent told The Oklahoman the punishment was unfair. “This is their livelihood essentially,” he said, referring to the high school athletes. In the same interview he refers to those same athletes as “these babies.”

In a Seattle suburb this week, a parent was banned from youth hockey arenas statewide and charged with two misdemeanors after he stepped onto the ice and assaulted two referees. The victims were 13- and 14-years old, respectively.

“This isn’t an isolated incident,” Jody Carpenter, president of the local youth hockey association, told The Seattle Times. “There’s been an escalation of bad parent behavior.”

According to a 2017 survey by the National Association of Sports Officials, adult behavior is the reason more than 75% of all high school referees quit. The report also found that 80% of new officials stop after only two years.

Many say the problem is contributing to a shortage of high school referees nationwide, and extends to the youth sports level.

In a recent survey of nearly 36,000 sports officials conducted by the National Association of Sports Officials, 69% of the men and women from all levels of sports who responded said sportsmanship at games is getting worse. More startling, though, was 50% of the officials said they have felt unsafe while doing their jobs.

Oklahoma Watch (OklahomaWatch.org) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.