Why should we restrict refs from doing games because of the ludicrous, and almost criminal behaviour of parents and coaches.

I cant wait for the day that a ref decides to sue a parent or coach for the abuse.

I guess it could proceed to Court as a criminal matter, but I would personally hate to write the brief, and try and prosecute someone for it. Nightmare!!

Just a question, (and I ask because I don't know), but are there any guidelines or policies in relation to banning people from stadiums due to threatening and intimidating behaviour.

Here in Canberra, if some is caught stealing or any other criminal matter they can be banned for up to 12 months from attending that place, and if they do, it's trespassing. Just wondering if stadiums could do the same thing.

This could open a large can of worms....

Why does the age of the referee matter??

That would mean people like Phil Haines, Andrew Filmer shouldnt be reffing at NBL level, because a lot of the players are older than themselves.

If a ref is good enough to ref at a certain level, it is only their skills that should matter, not how old they are.

Not to mention it is actually illegal to discriminate on the basis of age.

Psst: "I feel junior refs should not umpire juniors older than themselves". No mention of the NBL and it's referencing a very specific point of intimidation.

I think the suggestion could be that younger refs are rostered on for specific games. Nothing wrong with rostering on an older salesperson in your store for the busier and more difficult shifts.

You were more on track with your first reply to this thread.

yogs,

what he is on about is junior 11-12 yo's doing u16 u18 u20 div 1 type games

by the time they are young adults 17-18 yo - anything is fine

not age related in the adult world - just enough time to get soem life experience and thicker hide.

it just leaves a bad vibe when an 11 yo girl runs off crying at an u14/16 game because a question was asked - not even stood over by parents or coaches - everyone feels bad - because they could not cope - head ref was aware - but it was too late after the game - hence they should not be routinely rostered to older kids - unless they want to / can handle it

if that was the case yogee - who would referee melbournes nbl team - ? noah

I have a question regarding the matter of the umpire harrassment from parents/coaches/players..where is their umpire in charge and what happened to zero tolerance?
If a junior proves to be a good umpire then the challenge of umpiring a higher grade may help them along, but they need to be looked after by those senior umpires that should be rostered on the game with them. And yes, I have known of adults being ejected from the stadium because of this sort of behaviour. Give the kids a go but please don't send them out there without a senior partner.

I believe that no player has a right to continually ask questions of a referee - no coach has the right to continually ask questions of a referee and no parent continually has that right. The only rights a player has is to play, the only right the coach has is to coach and the only right the parent has is to support their kid and watch the game.... the sooner smart ass, narrow minded people in this state realise what they're doing to basketball in this state by continually feeling like they have a right to be asking question after question and calling foul, travel, 3 seconds all the time (and doing much worse than this aswell) the better off basketball in this state will be! It takes the right people in the right position to have the balls to draw the line in the sand. When I started in basketball you didn't get a real chance to say much... and if you did you were lucky or... you had to be as nice as pie!!! Why all of a sundden in this day and age has that changed ??? Crap behaviour turns everyone away from the game and the fact that you can get away with anything, because when you get reported you barely ever get suspended or you can easily get the suspension lifted or reduced - what support does that give and what line in the sand is drawn ??? This goes for any level of the game in my eyes !!

Age is not the problem.

Ability/experience/attitude/aptitude - these are more important than age.

Communication - a life skill. Continually developing from the moment you're born till the day you die. Please do not expect a young person to have the same skill levels at communicating their ideas as what you (an adult/parent) do.

We live, we learn.

when are you going to get an able body uic at mars because im sick and tired of him umpiring games that he clearly cant keep up with

You can give up court speed for experience and feel for the game.

This is the opposite of the 'too young' arguement.

You need everyone who's willing to help you play the game you love.

To the person who said "give them some earplugs" I have just one question for you. What if that was you or someone that you know that gets that abusive treatment would you still be saying that comment? I am referee myself and sometimes you just can't ignore the comments that are made by spectators, coaches, players and the people operating the score bench (coaches and players don’t become as a shove as the spectators as often) and when we can’t ignore we can’t always immediately penalise them, sometimes there isn’t even a chance to warn them so maybe instead of giving them ear plugs how about the people who would have a biased view of things such as coaches and players just ask the referee for an explanation and the spectators just not yell anything abusive towards a referee, a player and a coach