It was finally over. A two point win by the team clad in orange jerseys, over the team in gray ones. Team Gray had a chance to win at the end but couldn't get a shot off. Fans cheered for their children and some breathed a sigh of relief as the buzzer sounded to end the game.
It was around 3 p.m. and it was my last game of the day, though not the last game of the tournament. As I sat on my folding chair next to the court, taking my shoes and compression socks off, getting ready for the rest of my Saturday, which I looked forward to spending relaxing with a stiff drink, my partner for the last four hours and I noticed a few parents from the last game sticking around near the front entrance.
It was a bit of an uneasy feeling, and one I hadn't felt before.
How did we get here?
An hour before, we tipped off the game. Everything had been cruising along, we'd had three games prior that were pretty easy. This was, after all, 4th-6th grade basketball.
Normally, I avoid officiating kids this young. Bless their little hearts, it's just not fun to officiate. They're not very good and there's just not much in it for me. I can't really get better officiating these kids as compared to high school and up. Some officials just want to make some extra coin - and that's fine - they can have these games.
But I don't do it for the money. Well, OK, I don't do it just for the money. Sure, it's nice having a few extra dollars each month, but I love basketball and I've really come into my own as an official - so I want to develop and get better. There's no sense in doing something if you're not going to learn and improve at it.
This particular weekend Meagan and I didn't have much going on, so I texted my mentor and assignor, Jaren, and told him I could pick up some games. He texted me back, told me where to be, at what time, and what to wear. I said OK.
So I show up and it's 4th-6th grade kids. Damn. Guess I'll make some easy money today.
Easy, sure.
The venue, The Campus, was an old warehouse converted to have 2 courts which could be used for basketball or volleyball, some bathrooms, and some small practice courts on the sides. It was bright and well-lit, though a bit cramped - not much space around the courts, so seating for spectators was limited and they were very close to the courts. And it was hot, you know that swampy hot where you're sweating as soon as you walk in and it just sticks to your skin and never really goes away.
So it's hot and cramped, and I have 4 hours of running around with middle schoolers ahead of me.
Yay.
The Campus in Capitol Heights, MD
Back to present. It's 1:50 p.m. and we start the last game more or less on time. The coach for Team Gray was running late, so the assistant coach and, apparently, a parent, were "coaching" until the actual coach arrived.
Not a full minute into the game we notice that Mr. Parent-Coach - who we didn't realize at the time was just a parent - was incredibly loud and aggressive and kept stepping onto the court. You can technically be as loud and aggressive as you want, as long as it's not directed toward an official or the other team or coach. But you can't step onto the court and get in the way of the game.
So I stopped the game and asked the Mr. Parent-Coach to calm down. I told him he can't come onto the court, and he can't yell to distract the other team when they have possession of the ball near him. I gave him a stern warning and gave him the palms facing down sign, meaning "let's relax here."
He looked back at me with a crazed look in his eyes, like it was funny, and in a mocking tone yelled, "What?! I can't talk to my own team?! I can't talk to 'em?!" And he put his hands in the shape of a "T" and asked if I was going to give him a tech.
NBA official Scott Foster giving a double technical foul
We're a minute into the game - I'm not giving out a tech unless it's warranted. I just looked back and said, "Coach, this is your warning," and went on with the game.
He turned it from 11 down to 10, so at least we were back on the scale, and, after a while the actual coach finally came so Mr. Parent-Coach left the sidelines.
Now it was the assistant coach's turn. The actual coach, who was very calm and level-headed, by the way, apparently decided to let the assistant coach have a moment in the sun and coach the rest of the game.
I kept hearing a loud smack followed by a yell. Finally, after a few times I look over and realize that when his team didn't do something right, the assistant coach would smack the wall behind him - much the same way a child would react when they didn't get their way.
The assistant coach.
Hit a wall and screamed.
Because children.
Weren't playing a game.
Up to his standards.
Wanted to be sure you got all that.
The wall was a makeshift plywood wall a couple feet away from the tin warehouse wall behind their bench. And it had those soft mats attached to it for protection - you know the ones from high school gym that if you smack it, it makes a very loud noise.
SMACK!
Again. And he added an obscenity this time. I think he said, "What the fuck are we doing?!" referring to his players not playing defense correctly.
I blew my whistle. "Coach, this is the last warning - I already gave the other guy a warning. This is high school rules - the players can't curse and neither can you."
"But I'm talking to my own team! I'm not talking to you!"
"Doesn't matter. We're not cursing at 6th graders out here."
I told my partner so we were on the same page - next outburst is a tech.
He actually did end up calming down, to my surprise. But his outbursts set the stage for what happened later.
It's hot. And it's cramped.
Team Orange is better than Team Gray. Their players are quicker and shot well. They also have more players overall, so they weren't as tired. But they're losing in the first half. And Orange's coach is getting upset because his team has reached the foul limit and the other team hasn't. In basketball, once you commit 10 fouls, it's an automatic 2 free throws for the other team. And Team Orange has committed more than 10 fouls. Which, to be honest, is a lot for this level.
Did I mention I usually avoid these games?
Part of the reason is because if we, as officials, called every infraction during games at this level, we would blow the whistle on every play and that's no fun for anyone. So, we try to only call the ones that are egregious - meaning someone hit someone a little too hard - or ones that cause a disadvantage - typically caused a turnover or knocked someone down, etc.
So the fact that Team Orange has committed 10 fouls says something. It says they are the better team but they're losing, so instead of playing better basketball, they've resorted to being more aggressive. The aggressiveness is leading to them fouling more often.
Of course, the coach thinks we're just calling more fouls on his team because we don't like them. He actually said this to me at halftime, "Listen, you gotta call it both ways," (classic coach line) "Both teams are being aggressive but the foul count is 10 to 5. I'm startin' to think you just don't like us."
I chuckled. "Coach, I don't care one way or the other about either team. Your players are being a little too aggressive. But I hear you."
We get back to the 2nd half. His players kept fouling.
Did I mention it's hot? And cramped?
When it's hot, it's uncomfortable. My partner and I had already given out two warnings to one team and now we have the coach of the other team thinking we're biased against him. As if being a referee means we take joy in calling fouls against children.
So it's even more uncomfortable, and now we add in the final ingredient.
The worst part of youth sports.
The parents.
The end line (or baseline as it's commonly called) is the boundary line that runs from sideline to sideline, underneath the basket. Along one of the end lines are a bunch of fans. Parents. Mouth-breathers, as El from Stranger Things would call them. Breathing on me, making it hotter than it already is. I don't know which team they're for - could have been a mix - but a particular few fans were clearly for Team Orange.
And they were starting to get riled up.
Mr. Turquoise kicked off the whiny party - he was sitting near the corner. Every play, it seemed like, he was saying it was a terrible call, a crazy call, that's not a foul, that was a foul, that's not a travel, that was a travel... it went on for several minutes.
During a break in play I asked one of the security officers to keep an eye on him and not let him get too rowdy. They obliged and Mr. Turquoise quieted down.
Next up was his buddy, Mr. Cargo Shorts. Mr. Cargo Shorts took it a little further. He was positioned closer to the basket - actually quite literally directly behind the basket - which put him in my field of vision - just on the edge of my periphery.
He thought it would be OK to have conversations with me. He'd say, "You just called a travel on that end, how is that not a travel right there?" And the same thing with fouls, "How is that not a foul? It's the same thing you just called on their end." And on and on. "That's terrible, man. You're terrible. What are you looking at? Did you not see that?! How did you not see that?!"
We are trained to ignore fans and it kept going until finally he said "That's bullshit," as a sixth-grade child passed the ball to a teammate about 2 feet from him.
I blew my whistle and stopped the sixth-grader from advancing.
I motioned to security and said, "This guy's gotta go. We're not moving forward with this game until he's gone."
The guy looked incredulous, like he'd done nothing wrong. I said, "I'm not having him sit here yelling obscenities at a sixth-grade basketball game."
He tried the argument that he'd paid to be here and he was staying. Security looked at me and I said, "I'm not playing this game until he's gone." They said, "Sir, let's go."
Just then, Team Orange coach came over and asked what was going on. I told him the situation and the coach said "OK, listen let him stay, if he says one more thing - you can kick him out."
I said, "Coach, if that's what you want then the next time he says something it's a technical foul on you - and he's getting kicked out." The coach tried to back out but eventually agreed and told the guy, "Don't say nothin' - don't even breathe hard."
We went on with the game. Mr. Cargo Shorts didn't say anything - but every time I was nearby, he would lean and strain to get into my field of vision and just stare. I didn't care about that - as long as he's not disrupting or distracting the kids, he can do whatever he wants.
Another parent made some additional comments shortly after and thankfully I didn't have to say anything - security was nearby and gave him his warning.
Team Orange was the better team, and despite the coach's whining about the foul calls, they played themselves back into the game, eventually going up by 11.
Then Team Gray gave themselves a chance by making three 3-pointers in the final minute!
They had a chance to win or tie but couldn't get the shot off.
The whistle blew. Game over.
It was my last game so I'm ready to get out of this hot, cramped warehouse. Team Orange coach wasn't happy with the finish. Whatever, they're rarely happy. Team Gray coach came over to say thank you, you did a great job - yep, the losing coach said that.
The Team Orange fans weren't happy, either. Also common, but this was different. I could see Mr. Cargo Shorts - who I almost had escorted out - and Mr. Turquoise and some others positioned in the hallway between myself and the front door. I took my time. I pulled my shoes and sweaty socks off, chatted with my partner and another official who would do the afternoon games.
My partner noticed the parents, too. As I'm packing up, he motions to the facility administrator and tells him the situation. He asked the admin if his partner (me) could get security to walk him out.
We don't expect anything to happen. But we don't want to put ourselves in a situation where something could happen. If I walk past Mr. Cargo Shorts and he attempts to elicit a reaction from me, there's no telling what could happen.
Security arrives and is ready to walk me out when I notice that through the glass side door I can see my car parked not far away. So I said thank you for keeping me safe, and slipped out the side door.
Fine by me - I am not ashamed whatsoever of avoiding conflict at a sixth-grade basketball game.
Security officer standing guard at an NBA game
I mentioned that it was hot and cramped at this facility. At a lot of these weekend tournaments, the venues are small and fans are very close to the court. Sometimes, they are mere feet away from me and at most facilities there is no security.
Sometimes it feels as if someone is screaming directly in my ear that I'm blind or I'm shit at my job, I suck, I'm crazy, I'm biased, I'm racist - I'm all of it rolled into one shitty excuse of a person.
And we as officials are just supposed to take it. Like it's just part of the game.
We're supposed to be able to just stand there and have another human being berate us, call us names, tell us we're accepting bribe money from the other coach, tell us to meet them in the parking lot - anything they want to say, they can say it, because... why?
I'm spending a perfectly good Saturday listening to my character being torn down because you think your 4-foot tall 6th grader is a professional athlete?
You think my moral compass is so off-kilter that I enjoy punishing your child and their teammates because of your actions?
There's a boundary line that establishes the perimeter of the basketball court and if the ball touches down outside of that line it's a violation.
There's also a line for the words that a person uses towards another human being.
You can boo, jeer, and disagree all you want. But when you continuously harass, threaten, or taunt someone - when you call someone's character into question or curse at or near children in the name of a game - in my eyes, you have crossed a line.
And that's a violation, too.
You can let me know how the view is from outside.
P.S. Sorry for cursing, Grandma, though I'm quite sure there are no middle schoolers reading my blogs. And if there are, well, piss off ya little shit.
P.P.S. This is not a black and white thing. The parents in this story, Mr. Turquoise and Mr. Cargo Shorts, were both white. The coaches were black. The players were white, black, brown, and one might have had blue hair.
Boston basketball fans are by-and-large white, often chanting"Fuck you, ref!" in unison in the current basketball playoffs.
White hockey players fistfight at just about every game.
A female softball umpire was recently punched in the face by a man in a high school game.
Baseball, football, soccer, and many other sports are marred by violent incidents.
Referees and players receive threats against their families all the time.
It's the nature of competition. No matter the color of your skin.
I'm sure there are some reading that need to hear this, because it's fairly common to associate basketball with being a black sport and jump to the conclusion that this is a "black thing."
It ain't.
It's a human thing. And we humans need to do better, especially when it comes to children.
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