After not officiating for about two weeks, I did six games in three days, and in the middle of them, I seemed to make some sort of breakthrough.
The immense anxiety and calamity I felt before and during games I ref, plus the massive comedown afterward, ceased relative to how visceral it was even just the day before. On Sunday, I did three-straight youth games in a tournament an hour away, and by the end of the first one, I was feeling better about myself. I entered into a flow, the game slowed down somewhat, and the incredible amount of complaining and verbal abuse I received from coaches and fans didn’t make me as self conscious.
Instead, they made me angry.
To say that my experience as a basketball ref has been unpleasant would be a disservice to the English language. In almost every single game I have done, there has been at least one fan or coach, but often more, who have relentless abused me and my partner, though it is often aimed more at me than them. I assume this is because of my size and age, plus noticeable novice jitters, but either way, it is the new normal for me. I show up, try to do a pretty difficult job as best as I can for the sake of the children, and all I get in return is adults behaving significantly worse than those they gave birth to.
As I said, I did six games in three days. Every game was fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade or middle school. Every game, there had to be some sort of confrontation between a coach, fan or both and a ref, and we weren’t the ones causing it. Our only crime was showing up and trying our best, and that means we deserve to be harassed, intimidated and treated like less than a human.
And through all of this, I have found myself much less anxious than before. I have started to get better about asserting myself in these situations, though I’m only slowly learning how to best handle them both effectively and professionally. Now that this has happened to me nearly every game I have called, it affects my thinking about my own abilities less than before. I now understand that this is just what happens: people treat you terribly because you have the audacity to put on the stripes.
In a fifth grade game Sunday, I called a jump ball during one of the many moshes that happens when 11 year olds do their best to play basketball. One sideline had chairs with fans seated in it perhaps five feet from the end of the court, so they were right next to me whenever I was on that side. I heard plenty from them, but one voice in particular from an older man was the most constant. Whomever this incredible example for the child to look up to was, he didn’t appreciate my jump ball call. He felt it was a travel, so he decided to yell at me from directly behind that it was “Refereeing 101!”
It still isn’t totally clear to me how I’m supposed to handle this situations. I don’t know when a line has been crossed where I’m justified in doing or saying something. I know where my personal line is, but I don’t know where the professional line is meant to be. But after he said that to me, I was enraged. The gall to sit right next to the court and lob insults at a ref during a fifth grade basketball game is incredible. I wanted to ask the man if he would have the balls to trade me places seeing as he felt the job was so simple.
It only got better. During the front end of a one-and-one for the team up by four with four seconds to go, a near insurmountable lead for professionals, let alone fifth graders, my partner called a lane violation in the backcourt. However, there were two three-point lines on the court, and he soon realized he had used the wrong one to make the call. So, he decided that because the free throw missed, we would award the ball to the losing team and have them inbound under the basket. I wasn’t going to argue with him as the game was virtually over and at that point, it didn’t matter. But the winning team fans immediately lost their minds, and I mean lost their minds: screaming, yelling, insulting, the whole deal. The losing team proceeded to chuck the ball to mid-court, a small scramble happened and no shot got off. Four seconds after the supposed adults threw tantrums over something that quite obviously didn’t affect the game whatsoever, the horn sounded and it was over.
Last night, I did a middle school game in town. Before the game, my partner asked me how I was enjoying being a ref, a common question when a new partner learns it’s your first year. I told him what I always say, which is the truth: no, not really. I don’t enjoy being abused, and at this point, officiating is nothing more than a scheduled confrontation as far as I’m concerned. He was surprised to hear this and said in his three years of being a ref, only a few times had he ever experienced anything like I described.
Guess what? We proceed to officiate the game, and shockingly, one fan in particular will not shut up and is constantly harassing us and me in particular. My partner had to tell him to shut up in so many words at one point, and after the game told me he could have had him removed and maybe even called the game but didn’t want to punish the other team, which led by double digits for much of the second half. After the game, my partner was adamant with me that that was not normal, that he barely experiences anything like that and gave me good tips on how to handle situations like that in the future. As we walked out of the school together, the abrasive fan was standing in the lobby near the exit doors and stared us down as we passed. This is all because we dared officiate his son’s game.
I still get somewhat nervous before games and at the start, but it’s no longer anxiety about getting calls right and being the best ref possible. It’s about the confrontation that I know is coming and how much fun it’s going to be to enjoy an hour or more of abuse, and the best part is, there is nothing I can do to stop it. It doesn’t matter what I call, it doesn’t matter who the home team is, it doesn’t matter how confident I am in my decisions and signals. No matter what, I’m wrong to someone, and that someone doesn’t consider my humanity. The stories I shared in this are only the tip of the iceberg for what I experienced in my six games in three days, let alone what I’ve had happen overall so far this season, and I’ve only probably done 10 or so games, not including scrimmages.
Perhaps the worst part is what it has done for my love of basketball. Every game I do, I can feel my passion for the game shrinking ever so slightly smaller and smaller. You try to do a good thing for the sport and the kids who play it by officiating their games, and in return to get slammed by entitled adults who can’t see beyond their own forehead to understand that their behavior is harming their children. Usually in the winter, I watch basketball almost every night and can’t wait for the games in the evening. On days when I ref, the last thing I want to do after being verbally assaulted for an hour is to put myself right back into the gym through my TV screen. The thing I have loved so much for the entirety of my life is very slowly becoming less and less appealing, and I hate it.
I have commitments for more games this season, and as of right now, I don’t intend on backing out of any of them. I’ve gained quite a bit of confidence in myself and my abilities as a ref, and I have received a lot of compliments from my partners. I believe that I could excel as a basketball ref if I stuck with it for years, but when all I get in return is the same treatment as garbage, why bother? If it’s hurting my passion for the game and puts me in a bad place all day anticipating the abuse, then taking the abuse, then reliving it in my head all night long after, then why do it?
We will see if it gets better. Maybe it will. I have had multiple other officials tell me that my experience is abnormal, and I believe them. But unless I see a difference in the games I do, I’m not so sure I’ll be doing this again next season. There are more dignified ways to make a buck.
