One, two, three strikes… you’re IN
Way back when, as an assistant coach for my middle child Nate’s soccer team, we set up an early spring scrimmage one weekend against another squad. We needed someone to referee.
I volunteered. Before the game, I gathered the kids and then the parents and told them this: I’m no soccer expert, and I’m not going to be a good official. I’m happy to wield a whistle to help keep order, but it’s only a scrimmage. I will focus on preventing dangerous plays, but I will miss many calls (offsides?… forget it!).
Despite this pregame orientation, early on, things got chippy–these were two good teams with many competitive kids–and some parents from the other team started getting on me, complaining about the officiating.
No chance. After a few comments, I walked right up to one guy, and I dangled the whistle in front of him. “You wanna do it?” I asked.
In my long years involved with youth sports, I’ve had the experience many others have had: parents are the weak link. But the growing, well documented abuse of officials has gone too far, and the repercussions are tangible: For example, New Jersey is having trouble finding soccer officials at all levels.
Deptford Little League has come up with a plan: You wanna berate the umps? Then you’re gonna ump yourself. As reported in the May 21, 2023 Philadelphia Inquirer, “Fed up with parents cursing umpires, two of whom quit in April, Deptford Little League president Don Bozzuffi made international news last month by instituting a novel punishment: Unruly parents will be banned from attending games unless they umpire three contests themselves.”
I love it.
Take these jerks out of the bleachers and hand them the umpire jersey.
Watching pro sports, you can see how critiquing the officials has become part of the flow of the game. Announcers, dopes like Jeff Van Gundy and Cris Collingsworth, make such criticism a natural part of a broadcast. (Well, at least Van Gundy’s gone now, but I always wonder how these lousy announcers keep their jobs. How do you rate them? People are going to watch the great products of the NBA finals or the NFL playoffs no matter who blabs about it–sorry… spiteful digression…).
Disdain for officials is cross cultural, but consider how ingrained it is in American sports culture. In the song “Six Months Out of Every Year” from the old baseball musical Damn Yankees, givin’ it to the ump is just part of the game, part of the fandom chorus:
Strike three, ball four, walk a run’ll tie the score,
Yer blind Ump,
Yer blind Ump,
Ya mus’ be out-a yer mind, Ump!
Officiating human beings in motion is incredibly difficult, no matter the level. In my long experience, officials get the vast majority of it right, and when there is a weak official, they are just that: A weak official, and they are missing calls all over. It’s not some crooked person who’s calling everything against your team. (In my many years as coach and fan, I did have one moment I’m truly embarrassed about. I still want to find that ref and apologize.)
I know a missed call is frustrating, especially in the age of replay. Remember, I’m an Eagles fan, and I had to agonize over a Super Bowl frittered away after a tough call.
At its base, though, the abusive, frothy behavior of fans, which often begins as soon as a competition starts, demonstrates a fundamental lack of respect for another person. Deptford’s Little League approach makes the bad fan become that person. As Bozzuffi said, “I tried to think about the one thing in the world parents wouldn’t want to do. This was it.”
My hope is not that such fans will get a taste of their own medicine, because after all that means other fans are yelling at them, but that through this experience thet will understand that the person umpiring the game is earnestly trying to do a good, fair job.
They will, in other words, learn something bigger: They will learn empathy.
