During the home opener for La Crescent-Hokah High School in Minnesota, the fans were rough on the referees. Members of the student section were yelling at the refs and criticizing the refs. Some thought the student section went too far. Senior captain Noah Bjerke-Wieser of the boy’s basketball team was one of those individuals. So, he decided to make a post on social media to remind his fellow students about sportsmanship.
“We need to stop yelling at the refs. We all get that it is frustrating when the officiating in a game is not great, but we need to stop the harassing behavior. It is hard enough to get officials to ref a varsity game anyway, it doesn’t help when they specifically don’t want to ref a La Cresent game. As spectators, please let the players play, the coaches coach and the officials officiate. I hope we can all come together as a community and change for the better. Thank you for coming out and supporting us, but please support our team in a positive way.”
Noah’s coach, Ryan Thibodeau, says everyone can learn about good sportsmanship from his captain. “As a coach you hope that everyone who plays for you, leaves with a little something, but it’s really kind of cool when you learn from your players. It was a pretty cool overall message.”
Joe’s Perspective: An unspoken rule of our culture is an acceptance of yelling at the refs. However, there is a big difference between yelling at an NBA ref or a college ref (within reason) and yelling at a ref at a high school game. First, refs at the highest levels are paid quite well. Second, there is not a shortage of refs at the pro or college level. The story is very different at the high school and middle school level. It is tough to find refs for all of these games. It’s important to know that officials are not paid very well. High school athletic departments just don’t have the funding to pay officials much money. And, if you are not making a lot of money as a ref, the last thing you want to do is get harassed by a rude crowd of high school students. Many officials conclude that it is not worth it and quit the profession altogether. Others decide that they will never return to officiate a game at “that school” again. So, if you are a middle or high school student, please listen to the message provided by Noah, the senior captain from La Crescent High School.
Your Turn: Please rate the behavior of the student section of your school on a scale of 1-10 (1 is awful, 10 is fantastic). Explain your rating.
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8 because we are usually pretty respectful and quite. But there are other times when it gets out of hand.
Our student section is pretty tame and common for high schoolers, there is little to no yelling at refs.
7 terrible no one comes to the game to cheer on our teams
8 because we get loud and have fun, but we don’t do dumb stuff
10 because we are always cheering
10. We are always cheering and hyping up
I think 9 because everyone is excited and cheering, but sometimes it could get out of hand.
our student section isn’t to bad, it’s the parents that get over excited. Rating would be about a 4.
I would give our student section a ten out of ten because they cheer for our team but not in a disrespectful way.
I would give my school’s student section an eight. They cheer loudly, but they do sometimes yell at officials when they make really bad calls. So, I think we can get a little bit better at that. Our school’s parents I would rate about a 6.5, they do yell at officials and it can be brought down a little bit. But, they do a pretty good job at cheering also.
I agree because adults get angry but they also know when to cheer at a great time.
I think that our adults are a little bit worse. So I would not rate them that high.
I think our student section is a 9/10 because i think that our students are pretty respectful and kind to the refs. I think that our adult section is a 4/10 because there are like 4-5 people that like to scream and yell at the refs and it makes it to where they don’t want to ref at our school.
I agree with you about our adults. They can tone it down a little bit, but there are only a few that are really bad.
I agree because adults can see more from the bleachers then the refs can.
I agree that almost all of our students are respectful and that some adults are rude.
I give the student section a 8/10 and the adult section at our school a 6/10 only because most of us are respectful but it can get out of hand at times. Sometimes there are people at our school that say things to refs that they probably shouldn’t say at times because they think they are right. I say our student section understands more about if the ref messes up that it’s fine than the adult section because they say if they are a ref they should do their job.
I agree because students are the ones playing the game and they make mistakes so they can relate to the refs mistakes.
I agree because I have seen the same actions.☹
What I would say about our schools adult section is that it’s 9/10 because I don’t know what it’s like but some adults could lash out when refs don’t call out any flags or fouls. What I think about the student section of our school is that it’s 9/10 because I’ve never seen a student lash out at a ref.
I respectfully disagree with you about our adults. Our adults are not very good. I would rate them lower than that.
I respectfully disagree because our adults like to scream at the refs a lot sometimes even when the refs don’t do anything.
I have not seen some one having awful behavior at all.
That is super surprising normally our adult section, especially is bad.
I think our kids should get a 9 because we almost never talk back to refs, but unfortunately I would give our adults a 6 because a few very loud people yell at the refs and ruin it for the kids.☹
I respectfully disagree with this because I think that our students and adults are lower than that.
How I would rate the students section at games is 8/10 because I think all the kids are respectful but sometimes they can be a little harsh and rude to refs and coaches.
How I would rate the adult section at games is a 7/10 because the adults can be really disruptive and yell at the refs. They kind of give out school a negative reputation and that’s not good. Sometimes they are good and stay positive but unfortunately it stays pretty negative.
I agree because my ratings are pretty similar.