Trivial but serious youth basketball question

My 6th grade daughter plays basketball for her school here in Southern Il. I am not a big b-ball fan but enjoy seeing my daughter play. At that age it's like watching a bunch of kitten run around batting a ball of yarn. Fun to watch and just root for the home team.
So we travelled up the road tonight to my former hometown. Pinckneyville is legendary for it b-ball team. I shunned this in my youth as I didnt make the team, even though I lettered in other sports and I would have been the second tallest player on the varsity team.
It was nice to go in and see people I knew from my hometown I hadnt seen in yrs (I just moved back here) and invited my mother as she hadnt seen my daughter play either.
Well with the JV team, it was obvious something was different. Couldnt quite ID what it was. The game was stoped and all of our team was inspected for hair pins and berets. Girls with off-color headbands were made to remove them. The coach was warned about my daughter as she had on a white t-shirt under her blue jersey, seems its supposed to be matching colors. What the ref didnt know was its primarily a cover for some mild embarassing exzema bumps on her shoulders.
Then comes the 8th grade game. From the start it was obvious what was going on. The whistle blew every 30-45 seconds for some sort of penalty, foul, technical, you name it against us. The statistician remarked at halftime it was about a 10:1 ratio of penalties against us. Within the last 3 minutes of the game, 3 girls were benched due to fowling out of the game. Many others were carrying a tally on them as well. First time all yr any single girl was benched due to fouls, let alone 3. One of our parents was ejected from the gym for being too vocal. (game was stopped during this)


So, one of the refs I know well. He owns THE local gun store, I went to school with his son, and he is a city commisioner. The other ref I didnt know, nor did my mother. But I did recognize him on the way out of the gym. His picture was on the wall of the gym when the opposing team won state, he was the former coach in 2011.


Does this not stink to high-heaven of a conflict of interest? The city father, I can see him leaning towards a little favoritism for his hometown but I think he could stay fairly impartial. He does have a public reputation to uphold. But this other guy...really? Come on. It was the former coach that expelled the parent. He let a player on his former team display the "helicopter of elbows" freely, yet called one of our girls as she tipped a pass, and the opposing girl caught the ball with her face.

I know this may sound like a disgruntled parent crying in their sour grape juice. But it was so blatantly obvious the grift was on and we were not going to win by any means. I did a quick google and found the championship ref from his former coaching days, now acting as a ref in the same school. What I would like to know from my fellow B&B family is if there is a entity of any sort that I can bring this to their attention? I know there are fathers and lawyers and scientists and many learned men here. I am just looking for a fair way to lodge a complaint to the appropriate place in a way that it is heard that has control over possible conflicts of interest like this. I live in Jackson county Illinois, if that helps.

Here is a picture of their former coach turned referee winning the championship in 2011. He is in the blue shirt.

http://www.duquoin.com/article/20110215/NEWS/302159875



Also, please dont bawl me out or try to dissect my point of view on this. I just dont know where to even start with voicing a concern like this.

It's sad when folks feel they have to cheat in a girls JV basketball game.

It stinks when this occurs, but as a former coach of youth hockey, I would ask that before you do anything, that you talk to the coaches of your daughter's team. They may have a different perspective or, for political reasons in the league, they may not want anyone to make waves. They may have also started some type of grievance process so the offending ref doesn't ref any more of your daughter's games, at least without additional training or league supervision present.

If the coaches are on board, I'd look to the association that runs the league. It's a school team, so it may be the Board of Ed or a different group. You'd simply contact them and explain, objectively, what occurred. They're likely all about data, not a feeling that the refs were biased.

Finally, remember that your daughter is involved. Although I hate this term, a game like this is a perfect "teaching moment" for her and a chance for you and the other parents on the team to model the type of behavior you'd want your daughter to exhibit.

I experienced a similar situation in a football game. We were freshman in high school and playing in a nearby small town in a freshman game. Frankly we shouldn't have been playing them. We were from a much, much bigger school full of much better athletes. I'm not saying this to brag, it's just what it was. My best friend was our starting defensive end. He went on to be a 3 time college All American at that position so to no one's suprise he's always racked up a lot of sacks. After sacking the quarterback about 4-5 times in the first few minutes, the kid gets up and screams out, "Dad, call something!!!" in a high pitched whiney voice. His father was the referee. We proceeded to rack up hundreds of yards in bogus penalties that game. My dad, as well as all the parents of my friends and the other starters where ejected from the game (the only time any of them were ejected from a game from peewee through college ball). Disaster of a game, after that year our school removed that team from our schedule.


In terms of what you can do. The short answer is nothing. The governing body, Illinois High School Athletic Association or whatever you have there, will not intervene in reversing a score. You can complain, but if this program was/is powerful it likely will not change anything in the future either. The only real recourse you have is to get the school removed from the schedule next year and hope you don't have to face them in the playoffs. I'm sorry about your daughter and her teammates.

BSAGuy said:

It's sad when folks feel they have to cheat in a girls JV basketball game.

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It's amazing how often that happens in sports. I used a coach with the Special Olympics and I saw it all too frequently there. The Special Olympics... I was shocked and it wasn't ever done by the handicapped athletes, those kids and adults were unflinchingly fair, it was done by organizers, parents, coaches and non-handicapped participating athletes. I was ashamed.

dklaiman said:

It stinks when this occurs, but as a former coach of youth hockey, I would ask that before you do anything, that you talk to the coaches of your daughter's team. They may have a different perspective or, for political reasons in the league, they may not want anyone to make waves. They may have also started some type of grievance process so the offending ref doesn't ref any more of your daughter's games, at least without additional training or league supervision present.

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As a referee, please do this. The only person that should be airing grievances up the chain of command is your daughter's coach. If I heard of a complaint about an official coming from a parent I wouldn't give it any thought.

I will say that it sounds like the referees were being the "fashion police" which I find ridiculous at that age group. There are certain rules regarding undershirts, etc. at the HS level but even then we often look the other way (unless the opposing coach says something).

I have two daughters, 7 and 3. So far neither has a big interest in sports, but stories like this and what I experienced when I played as a lad, make me pretty ok with that. They are a dancer and gymnast (as much as a 3 year old can be a gymnast, but she takes classes!) and seem happy there.

I wish there was a line between teaching competition and being over zealous.

Is that team undefeated at their home games?

Is it the same with the other teams they play?

I would think that if it was they would have a hard time finding opponents.

It's a good thing I don't coach because I would tell my kids as long as the fix is in go out there and play dirty. If you're going to do the time you might as well do the crime.

MrSpeedy said:

As a referee, please do this. The only person that should be airing grievances up the chain of command is your daughter's coach. If I heard of a complaint about an official coming from a parent I wouldn't give it any thought.

I will say that it sounds like the referees were being the "fashion police" which I find ridiculous at that age group. There are certain rules regarding undershirts, etc. at the HS level but even then we often look the other way (unless the opposing coach says something).

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As much as it might pain us, parents have no standing in matters such as this. You can, and should, discuss it with your daughter's coach. If he agrees with your assessment of the reffing, he should file a grievance. That ref has no business in youth athletics, if he behaves like that.

Having grown up in Brooklyn, my advice would probably not be the most appropriate.

A little update on this.
I took MrSpeedy's advice on this and alowed the coach to carry the bulk on this. I found out the person responsible for the referees, kinda like their boss, is my former coach from when I attended HS. He was attending the next game. I had a one on one with him in the hallway. He says the 2 refs in question are actually varsity level refs and it was a step down in pay and skill level for them to be ref-ing the girls game of this age group and we probly wont see them again.

I found more info about the former state winning head coach turned ref, turns out he is still on the payroll for that particular school. I asked my former coach if he percieves this as a conflict of interest considering the refs previous credentials and he is still employed by that particular school. He rolled his eyes and gave me some lip service but suffice to say, he doesnt think so.

So while the girls coach is handling the formal or informal complaint against the ref staff of that game, I stopped in to have a chat with the editor of our hometown paper. He loves covering prep sports and personally knows all of the refs and coaches. He found the story intriguing but he just came from the courthouse and had a deadline to meet about a murder suspect in custody so I dont think he will look too deeply into the b-ball drama. He agreed about the conflict of interest I found and was going to mention it to some sports directors to let them know they have our interest.

Its been 2 or 3 games since then. Our ecclectic band of farmers daughters have won every game since this issue. None have fouled out. The JV and varsity games last night were 40 something to teen something. Its only about 12 girls total. They barely have enough to play JV games and most JV girls end up playing in the Varsity game. I never would have thought they would have the skill to be almost undefeated.

As a side note, the opposing coach last night graduated with me. I havent talked to him in 23 yrs.

I am sure the dust will settle from this in time. Maybe our girls needed to be knocked down a notch to ground them, to inspire them to play with better technique. Time will tell.

That's a good way to look at it (inspiration and all...)

Although it sounds like it is being taken care of, I will add a little bit from my point of view. I will start by saying this, it happens at all levels. I have coached my daughters Little League softball team for 3 years now and it is amazing at how the umps, most of which are uncles or brothers of players on the opposing teams, make favorable calls to the opposing team, lol. The strike zone shrinks when my pitcher takes them mound and when my batters come to the plate the damn thing just magically grows, lol. Anyway, as a coach I will say this. Please do not take upon yourself to file a complaint, if you feel that strongly about it talk to the coach about it. As a coach and a team, you tend to play the same teams most of the time and know whats coming. My daughters best friend plays for the other team, we have two in our city. And her dad, a very good friend of mine, helps coach that team. We talk to each other all the time about the umps, and coaches of other teams. So most of the time coaches already know whats coming.

I'm curious as to what parents think gives them the right to "lodge a complaint" about a couple of guys refereeing a grade 8 girls basketball game. If the coaches have an issue, that's one thing, but as a parent/spectator all you should be doing is cheering on your kids and then speaking with them afterwards to use what happened as a life lesson. The calls won't always be fair and won't always go your way - that doesn't make it right, but that's life.

It sounds to me there's likely a shortage of officials in some of these leagues. How many of you have taken the time to learn the rules of a particular sport inside-out, given up your evenings and weekends, been sworn at, spat on and called every name in the book for minimal pay? I ref hockey and have experienced any/all the above.

I'd encourage anyone who has an issue with the officiating to buy a rule book, sign up for a clinic, purchase all the equipment and put yourself out on the field/ice/floor. It's a minimum (for hockey anyway) $500 investment before you ref a single game, for the paltry sum of $19. Any small wonder that a high percentage of officials end up being relatives of the players?

Are there crappy refs that are out there for the wrong reasons? Sure there are. Just in the same sense there are crappy coaches, administrators, fans, and even players at times. Maybe the guy was having a tough day. Maybe he saw things differently than you did. Maybe the league has been on his *** about cracking down on the "fashion police" stuff. Who knows?

The best way, in my opinion, to deal with it would have been to maintain your composure at the game (speaking generally of all parents, not you in particular), make sure that the players and coaches remained respectful towards the officials and their opponents and then spoken privately to the team officials to get their take on what happened. At that point, respect their decision on whether or not to move forward with a more formal complaint. Beyond all that....try and remember that IT'S ABOUT THE KIDS.

I have always thought one of the values of athletics is teaching kids life isn't always fair and how to deal with it. A blown call costing you a game is a pretty cheap way to learn a very important life lesson.

Literally EVERY sports league for kids, even the school league, is going to suffer from this sort of nonsense to some degree. the causes are many and include, in no particular order . . .
a lack of volunteers in various positions (coaches, refs, convenors).
volunteers who have grown stale in their positions ("I've been doing this for 20 years . . .").
school or "rep" programs that have become "trophies" for the community (e.g. Texas HS football).
overbearing parents who see their child as "the next Jordan" (without recognizing the math that mitigates AGAINST that).

As a player, coach, and parent who had a brother and Father who reffed minor hockey (both actually refereed a young Wayne Gretzky), it is sad the lengths that some people will go to in forgetting that sports is supposed to be about fair competition and growth for our children. I think you are heading down the proper road in dealing with this situation. Good luck to your daughter and her team mates.