Death of Soccer Referee Ricardo Portillo Raises Questions About Assaults on Officials - NYTimes.com

It's good to see these questions raised by some in the national media ( noted here from the New York  Times and AP ). The next step is to get something done to reverse the trend that now is becoming tragically obvious to all.

from the NY Times:
Death of Soccer Referee Ricardo Portillo Raises Questions About Assaults on Officials - NYTimes.com:

To some observers, Portillo’s death is simply the most recent example of a growing problem. Mano said treatment of officials had deteriorated drastically since he began the organization in 1980. At that time, he said, the notion that an official would have insurance specifically against assault was “ludicrous.”

“It wasn’t on anyone’s radar,” he said. “But now it’s part and parcel of what we do, and not a week goes by where we don’t get at least two or three calls with reports of officials being assaulted.”

Reliable data on referee assaults at all levels of all sports does not exist, but there have been several violent events worldwide in recent months. In December, a soccer official in the Netherlands died after being attacked by a group of players. Three months ago, a referee in Spain was hospitalized and had his spleen removed after being assaulted by a player. Last week, a New Jersey parent was arrested and charged with assault after he slapped a 17-year-old Little League umpire.

'via Blog this'


from the AP:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/RAGING_AT_REFS?SITE=FLPET&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Ref's death a consequence of lack of sportsmanship

The football teams were still on the field, exchanging the traditional postgame handshakes, when Pete McCabe walked by. The veteran referee heard another official call his name and turned, only to be smashed in the face with a helmet by one of the players.

Almost every bone in McCabe's face was broken, his skull fractured in several places and his nose nowhere close to where it belonged. As he lay on the ground in Rochester, N.Y., the semi-pro player who assaulted him stood over him yelling, "Take that. Take that. This is what I'm all about."

"I have said since this happened to me that it's going to happen again," McCabe said, "and someone is going to get killed."

Four years later, someone was.

..........

 McCabe was sickened when he heard the news that Ricardo Portillo had died Saturday, a week after the youth soccer referee in Utah had been punched in the head by a 17-year-old player angry over a yellow card. Just as Portillo's family is now pleading for athletes to control their tempers, McCabe has spent the last four years preaching the importance of sportsmanship in and around Rochester.

To limited success.

"There's no respect for officials now," McCabe said Monday. "Go look at any game, and they're yelling at the official. Pick a high school event, and go watch a couple of games. I guarantee you, you'll see a coach get out of control on the sideline. Or a parent. Or a kid. It's so rampant.

"What happened in Utah, I knew it was going to happen. It was just a matter of time," he added. "Whether it was New York state, Massachusetts, Florida, it was going to happen somewhere in this country."

...........

"Part of this isn't a sport problem, part of it is a societal problem," said Dan Gould, director of the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at Michigan State. "You watch TV, and the trash talking that's accepted. If you're famous, you're almost supposed to get into trouble. Why is everyone infatuated with Lindsay Lohan when she seems like a spoiled brat?"

Added Barry Mano, the founder and president of the National Association of Sports Officials, "We've become so loud and so brash. It's about me and about being in the spotlight. All of those things play out in the games we play."

Part of the beauty of sports - and youth sports in particular - has always been its power to educate and transform. To instill in athletes skills and values they can use for the rest of their lives, in arenas that don't have hardwood floors or boundaries outlined in chalk. Talk to any CEO or other successful person, and odds are he or she can trace the lessons they learned about teamwork, fair play, leadership and overcoming challenges back to Little League, Pee-Wee football or some other youth sport.

But just like passing, dribbling and hitting, those skills don't come with the uniform and the practice schedule. They have to be taught and reinforced by league administrators, coaches and, of course, the parents who signed their kids up for a team in the first place.

"Most Americans really want their kids to learn values through sports. And research has found we can teach kids to be good sports and enhance their moral development through sports if it's done correctly," Gould said. "But the big myth is it just happens."