Utah soccer referee punched by player dies, police say | Fox News

Unbelievable that it's come to this. I've written time and time again about how this is embedded in the culture of youth sports in baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball -- you name it.

"Aw, let it go. It's part of the game" this razzing of officials, the outright disrespectful, boorish conduct. And that's bad enough. "Stop being so serious, they're just having some fun with the game".  "We gotta get our monies worth out of you guys (referees, umpires)." As if it's a legitimate part of the price they pay to have officials at games.

I see people seemingly tip-toe this line constantly. What's shocking in this instance was that it was a player. Generally, it's folks not directly involved in the game physically that are the worst, but not here.

But now it's come to this.

Players are out of control, coaches are out of control, fans are out of control at youth games all across the country. This happened in a rec-league game for crying out loud!!


from Fox News:
Utah soccer referee punched by player dies, police say | Fox News:

Police have accused a 17-year-old player in a recreational soccer league of punching Portillo after the man called a foul on him and issued him a yellow card.

 "The suspect was close to Portillo and punched him once in the face as a result of the call," Hoyal said in a press release.

Portillo's family said he had been attacked before, and Johanna Portillo said she and her sisters begged their father to stop refereeing because of the risk from angry players, but he continued because he loved soccer.

"It was his passion," she said. "We could not tell him no."

'via Blog this'


Because they feel entitled, emboldened by the culture of the game and now EVERY announcer, every damn one of them acts like Hawk Harrelson on steroids because they have the benefit of instant replay and whatever other whiz-bang form of "gotcha analysis" that's out there that tells them "the ump blew it", "we're getting hosed again".

And it's not just Hawk Harrelson that does it. I watched the Giants-Dodgers game and Duane Kuiper, I think went on and on about how badly Zito was getting hosed. All game long. That's got to stop as well. Whatever directive Selig has to bring down on these guys, whatever money has to come out these guys pockets for what comes out of their mouths, it has to happen. Because the conduct and the culture is dictated from what these folks hear and see in their living rooms well before they venture out to their youth field. They are conditioned to act this way. A fish rots from the head down.

It's disgraceful. There's instant replay in every stadium showing close/controversial calls, which they never used to do. That whips the fans into a frenzy at home, in bars and living rooms across the country. And they become conditioned. Some may say it doesn't even matter anymore, since people have all sorts of mobile apps, but the teams don't have to encourage the boorish behavior themselves institutionally. They need to lead on this issue.

So now it's come to this.

This better be a wake up call to sports administrators across the country to take this kind of shit a little more seriously than they do. And I'm not going to apologize for the language. This kind of behavior is coddled and tolerated by too many people who should know better. And it has to start at the top and flow all the way down to the pee-wee level. Because they are really at their worst there. They're putting their boorish training wheels on at that level. Time to step up and lead folks.

Because now it's come to this. And it's disgraceful.