A couple weeks ago, a high school football referee was blindsided by a kid after he made what the player thought was a bad call. After watching a video of this attack, I and millions of other people burst out laughing until upon further reading the corresponding article, discovered the hit actually broke the ref’s collarbone. Bummer.
Being a high school referee easily ranks in the top five under the category of “Worst Jobs Known to the Human Race.” What perks are there to being a high school ref? The money can’t be good enough for the endless torments referees endure. There’s always know-it-all coaches yelling after every call an official makes and looking like nothing would make them happier than strangling the ref with their bare hands. I’ve seen coaches stare so venomously at refs after a call went against their team that a weaker individual would have crumpled like a cheap tent.
Even worse are the stuck up players themselves, who argue calls they know nothing about. I’m sure referees have had the strong urge to give a good kick to some snotty kid during a game, yet you rarely see them lose their tempers.
Referees are the scapegoats of society. They can’t win. If they make a call, someone is always unhappy. They are heckled constantly by fans booing and yelling “What game are you watching, Zebra!” Referees also always seem to end up getting blamed for a team’s loss, regardless of how badly the team played. A losing team’s head coach usually starts out his post game speech with something along the lines of, “Well, boys we might have played like junk today – but if that ref had even half an eye we would have won easy.”
High school referees and pretty much anyone else who wears the hated black and white stripes are treated like Cinderella was by her stepsisters. They are flat out bullied by fans, coaches, and even players. According to the National Association of Sports Officials, there are more than a hundred reports annually that involve physical contact between coaches, players, fans and referees. For example, in Pennsylvania, a parent body slammed a high school referee for kicking his wife out after the woman allegedly yelled obscenities during the game. The referee went to the hospital where he was treated for a concussion.
There have been numerous accounts of brutality against refs ranging from an entire basketball team beating up a ref after a game, to my personal favorite, a man starting a fight with an umpire during a six-year-old’s softball game. I mean, Good Gravy, it’s not like these guys are human punching bags and everyone gets a turn. What point was that guy trying to make in a six year old’s softball game?
I think it’s safe to say, we need to take it a little easy on our referees. Just look at most high school refs. They look like little, disheveled old people who’d be the first to tell you if they didn’t have to do this job, they wouldn’t. For example, the referee at the Jennings-Ladue football game looked miserable standing in the cold rain and eerily similar to the sad old guy from the movie “Up.” It’s a well-known fact that refs miss calls, but we have to acknowledge that this is just the human element of all sports. Let’s face it, they’re only human and make mistakes. And arguing over calls is completely unnecessary. Whenever you see managers going out to argue a call during baseball games, does the umpire ever change his mind No. It just makes the one arguing look like an idiot. If parents and fans are so desperate for their team to win that they are willing to assault a ref and embarrass themselves, maybe they should consider a more productive way to help the team. Something along the lines of cheering on their own kids could be a start. #
