To youth sports officials: Priority No. 1 is to protect the kids

My wife hates it when I yell at the referees at our kids' games.

She's right, of course -- it's unseemly to yell at referees for any number of reasons. And while I really don't do it often, her point is I shouldn't do it, ever. I know that. But sometimes I just can't help myself. Hey, I'm human. And I will say, in my defense, that the refs have to be pretty bad for me to yell at them.

Usually I only yell at football refs, and occasionally, lacrosse refs, for some reason. I rarely yell at basketball referees. Inside a gym, with fewer people watching, somehow I don't feel as comfortable calling a referee out for every mistake. Perhaps it's because my nephew is a basketball ref, and I realize that referees are people too. I don't know.

Last week, though, it was hard to remain calm as I watched while the two referees working my son's CYO league basketball game allowed the game to get completely out of control. The opposing team was extremely physical, and the referees took the approach where they "let the kids play.'' 

At the youth level, I always prefer referees call a tighter game, so as to teach the kids what is a foul and what isn't. But allowing some physical play is fine, as long as the referees A) remember to let both teams' kids play, and B) at some point, take control and don't allow the physicality to reach a level where the game becomes dangerous to the participants.

The two referees at the game in question did neither of those things in this particular instance. The opposing team spent the entire game pushing, bumping and banging my son's team and it wasn't long before my son's team -- which has three football players on it -- decided to push and bump and bang back.

The problem is, as the contact got more and more intense, the conditions got more and more dangerous for the players. At one point, my son swiped at the ball after a rebound on a missed free throw and fouled an opposing player. The player swung his elbow -- violently -- at my son, and grazed him with a glancing blow on his jaw. He wasn't injured, thank goodness, but he's the only one that got charged with a foul on that play.

And that's where the game went completely off the rails.

My son's coach began to argue with the referees, not protesting the foul call against my son, but the lack of a call on the elbow that the opposing player threw at him. Eventually, the coach got a technical. And then a second technical, which meant he was ejected. The other team hit a bunch of foul shots in the sequence and a tight game began to slip away. That led to things getting even more physical. Thankfully, no one got hurt, but things got so bad that the referees ended the game with 16 seconds still left on the clock.

But that wasn't the end of it. Our coach called the league to complain about the officials, but the league decided to go along with the referees' report, which painted our team as the aggressors. The league suspended our coach for two games and two of our players got two-game suspensions as well, because they were assessed technical fouls in the game. The technicals came late in the game, as the refs were no doubt trying to rein in the players on both teams. At that point it was too late; the game was already out of control.

By the way, in case you're wondering, I didn't yell at the refs -- much.

If I could send a message to the two referees that I believe allowed all this chaos to occur, here's what I would tell them: Call fouls when you see them. By doing that, you set the tone and let the kids know what will and won't be tolerated. That's the best way to keep everybody safe on the court, field, or ice: If you do that, I promise, I'll keep trying to stop yelling at you.

Watch your weight, sure, but don't get crazy

This morning, my son decided he was going to skip breakfast.

He intended to skip lunch, too.

This, apparently, is what wrestlers do on match days. And he's got a playoff match tonight.

Look, I've made no secret of the fact that wrestling makes me squeamish. I appreciate all the positive things the sport offers and I have a great deal of respect for the kids who wrestle. They are all in great physical condition, they develop great mental strength, and they enjoy a wonderful team camaraderie with one another. Overall, it's a positive experience for most kids, and my son enjoys it, which is all that really matters. My wife and I support him wholeheartedly, and we go to the matches and cheer for him, and for all the kids on the team.

But honestly, it's hard to watch sometimes. We were powerless to do anything at a recent match, when an opponent looked like he was going to pull our son's arm out of its socket; and even when he wins a match -- when he pins the other kid, I end up feeling kind of bad for his opponent.

On top of all that, there's the weight thing, which makes us uneasy, too.

As a freshman, he's been content to wrestle his actual weight, or near it, even though that meant he had to start the season on J.V. He did have to lose two pounds to get to the nearest weight limit, but that wasn't a big deal, considering that other kids have had to lose a lot more than that to find an available spot they can fill in the varsity lineup. One of his teammates told me he had lost 20 pounds since the summer. It was the only way for him to earn a regular varsity spot.

Yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday, and with a playoff match tonight, my son and his teammates couldn't afford to go hog wild on Buffalo Wings and bleu cheese dip like most of the rest of America. He actually went running earlier in the day to burn off some calories and give himself room to have a wing or two and maybe some chips and a soda. This morning he woke up right at his weight limit, so all was good -- except he didn't want to take a chance that eating breakfast might push him over the limit.

Now, believe me, I understand that in the real world, there are many children who don't eat breakfast because there's no food in their house. And that's absolutely heartbreaking to think about. Thankfully, that is not my son's situation. Instead, he chooses to skip the most important meal of the day because of his commitment to a sport, which sounds very much like a First World problem. My wife and I were able to convince him to have an apple this morning, but he wouldn't even drink a glass of water with it, afraid that might push him over the weight limit. He made himself a fruit smoothie and packed a few snacks for after the weigh-in.

Weight management is just part of the sport, and I get that. And fortunately, our son isn't doing anything crazy -- at least not yet. But he likes the sport, and at this point intends to do it again next year and to continue doing it throughout high school. So there could come a point, over the next few years, where he will feel the need to lose a massive amount of weight -- either for his own benefit, or for the team's. 

I'm hoping that never happens.