Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Players target Ref....

Unless the coach is a big time racist? Things are heating up with the races in case you have not noticed. The assistant coach is black and the ref is white.

Another good post EE. I played hundreds and hundreds of baseball games, a few hundred professionally. I, along with everyone else on every team I played for, has been called every name in the book. Also been called names I didn't even know existed, but sounded bad , by players and mainly losers in the stands. This racist name calling excuse is total BS, and nothing new, even if it did happen, and I have doubts it did. Once again, its a convenient CYA alibi.

You don't take action on the whole team or the program. Whether or not there were no previous issues is irrelevant. Deal with the players and possibly the coach and move on. Actions have consequences. Those players are going to find out quick what a bad decision it was.

No need for more drama than is necessary.


Clyde

There were serious issues with this team and school, both in the games the prior year, and in the JV game the night before. So many, in fact, that parents were encouraged NOT to go to the game Friday night. This team was known for playing dirty, and name calling not just to other players, but to refs and fans as well. One of those teams that you really don't like to play no matter if you win the game or not. There were problems all throughout the game leading up to the incident in question.

The allegations were filed against the ref by the school as a knee-jerk reaction even before any investigation at all was done.

I am very familiar with Texas High School football. I had two boys that played Varsity ball back to back, with deep playoff runs every year, averaging 2-4 playoff games per year. My youngest son's team won a State Championship his senior year (2013). I have seen a lot, good teams and bad, with both outstanding and atrocious sportsmanship as well. They come in all kinds of combinations. But one thing I have learned is that behavior like that is either tolerated (and/or condoned) by coaches, or it is not. An isolated incident can occur anywhere. But recurring issues, well, there is a reason they are recurring. It is because they are not controlled or dealt with.

At least one member of the coaching staff in question told the boys "He needs to pay for what he did to us." Most of your answer lies right there. Even so, ANY player high school age, that has played any kind of ball, knows targeting a ref that way is a very, very bad idea. And they should be held responsible for that, because what they did went beyond bad sportsmanship, it was criminal. And the coaching staff should be held accountable as well if they condoned or encouraged it.

There is much more to this story that is not out in public knowledge and the news yet.

Different from what I'm hearing but, if true, that certainly sounds like a plausible explanation.



It turns out people were on this the very next day, the Texas Organization of Sports Officials (Refs and Umpires) stating they were in communication with all parties Saturday morning after the game.

I have been told that the Head Coach complained to the Officials at the game about conduct of the Ref that got hit DURING the game, before that hit occurred.

Also, the District is backing those claims. This is a huge and well-thought-of district with something like 100,000 students, I think they put up a new high school like every three years or so to accommodate the growth and field several good football teams, Jay being the lowest income school at the inner-city end.

I suppose they could be just posturing or even flat-out lying here, but that would not fit wit the reputation that District has. My bet is they have something to back those allegations up.



One hopes at least. I'd like to see that all the game recordings gone over frame by frame.




Just wondering why parents would be encouraged not to see their kids play even a dirty team, said game being on their own home turf.

Birdwatcher

Well, the Ref in question is complaining of headaches, suffering from unspecified injuries and waiting to be cleared to officiate again....

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/ho...by-football-players-wants-to-6496958.php

SAN ANTONIO - Robert Watts, the referee whom two San Antonio high school football players last week hit forcefully from behind in a game, wants to continue his officiating career and is hopeful he can return to the field this season if doctors give him a clean bill of health, his attorney said Thursday.

"My sense is he absolutely wants to continue officiating if he can," Alan Goldberger told the San Antonio Express-News. "He's been doing this for 15 years and is very dedicated, but his medical situation needs to resolve before he works another game.

"Rest may be critically important to him. I know right now he can't go on the field, but I don't know if he's done for the season or done forever or done for two weeks."

Birdwatcher

A week after the event, the Texas Association of Sports Officials is treading carefully....

http://www.taso.org/news/football/member-update-concerning-the-san-antonio-jay-high-school-situation

While it is understandable some individuals feel TASO should be making bold statements to the news media and on social media condemning the actions of the football players, the TASO Board feels a better approach is to gather the facts and give the school district, as well as the UIL, an opportunity to follow all appropriate protocols. Perhaps most importantly, TASO, and our official who was hit, is best served when we maintain an unbiased approach during the investigation that we are required to conduct. All eyes are on how we conduct ourselves at this critical point.

Since Saturday morning I have been in close contact with our member, the crew, Northside ISD, the UIL, and law enforcement. Together we are working on gathering the facts to bring this issue to a conclusion while protecting the rights and well-being of our TASO member. This will continue until we are satisfied we have a fair and truthful result.

Birdwatcher

So, these defensive players were not going after the ball runner and the ref did not get in the way by accident?

So just exactly how bad were the ref's calls that lead up to this incident?

And, I bet, never will be.

No, no, no. I read the other day that the D players eyes could be seen in the video.

I heard he called that one kid a 270 shooting insurance man, that would do it in my book!

What is trying to be protected/covered here?

I appreciate where you're coming from EE, and I believe it's the way we should conduct ourselves.

I'm not proud of the fact, and as I said, I'm not hitting from behind, I'd probably be right back in his face if he slurred one of my teammates.

not many folks have ever confused me with Cool Hand Luke

If just that first player had hit the Ref, plausible deniability coulda existed, that kid being subtle enough to possibly be watching the play while he hit the Ref.

The other player going in head first on the grounded Ref was the giveaway. Seems like both players have admitted it was intentional.

Birdwatcher

All I got for info is the Aunt of a player on that team who is close to her sister and nephew. She ain't defending what happened. What she's getting is that a couple of that Ref's calls were pretty egregious in calling back long-yardage plays in what was otherwise a close game and that dirty play on the line wasn't being called.

None of which, even if true, means the hits were justified. In fact the Ref coulda insulted all of their moms and their kid sisters and the hits still wouldn't have been justified.

But, the way it works in education is......

....you say ANYTHING culpable, even in the heat of a moment, and you're gone along with the kids in question.

I myself quit drinking coffee on school days for that very reason, too many times where I was getting angry rather than just acting like I was getting angry.

Birdwatcher

Where's gitem 12 when everyone obviously needs a non-biased professional to sort this stuff out?

Football is a GAME, particularly at the high school level. Not anything as serious as attempting to injure an opposing player or anyone is "ok". The punishment for such acts should be immediate and severe... both to the offending players and to their team as well.

To do any less is to encourage doing what those two high-schoolers did to the referee. They'd obviously do the same thing to an opposing player as their blatant lack of good sportsmanship indicates.

To purposely set out to injury another player OR a game official is not acceptable... and should never be part of the GAME.

VERY severe penalties should be given if such an obviously blatant act is committed. The penalty to the player might be to not allow him to play the rest of the season... or even greater.

The team of the offending player should also be penalized by giving the opposing team additional points on their score... the worse the act, the greater number of points awarded... giving the offended team 7 points or more, depending on the severity of the act, would certainly give a "dirty" player pause for reconsideration... especially if his own team-mates got "mad" at him for causing their team to lose.

In this case of attempting to injure a referee, a reasonable penalty might be to give the other team 7 to 21 points added to their score in addition to a yardage penalty due to the blatant attempt to injure a game official... or the penalty could even be the outright forfeiture of the game altogether.

By giving SEVERE punishments to the team of the offending player, no player will want their team-mates to be angry at him for such an un-sportsman-like act which could cause their team to lose the game.

The whole idea of a GAME is to not only give the young people a goal to achieve (winning the game), but in the case of sports, it's to TEACH good sportsmanship and fair play... and purposely attempting to injure either another player or a game official is NOT "good sportsmanship" by ANY "stretch" of one's imagination !~!~!

Jus' my 2 cents...


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

Birdwatcher, we will just leave it at the information I am getting from several different sources down there is different than what you are getting.

These days any kind of school, district, or other public entity is initially going to come down hard and fast on the side of political correctness, no matter what the facts later end up showing to be the truth. At even the slightest hint of anything racial, an investigation is opened, and then later, usually MUCH later, it is deemed there was no fault. Whether that is the case here, I do not know. But in 14 years of officiating there had been no formal complaints previously filed against that ref. And FWIW, in my experience teams that are poor losers usually complain about the refs. I have watched that for 20 years under the Friday night lights.

Which is actually a separate issue anyways. Name calling has never been a legal defense for assault. And if the coaching staff encouraged that assault, there is a serious problem with that school system, period. You can't cherry pick information here. First the kids said the ref made racial remarks. Later they said one of the coaches told them "He needed to pay." So are you going to believe them one time but not the other?

They are two kids that screwed up royally, and know it, and are trying to cover their butts.

And I will say that if the ref did make remarks, then he needs to go down for it. But that still doesn't change what those kids did. Or the coaching staff letting that game get out of hand the way it did.

There were players ejected from the game earlier for unsportsmanlike conduct too. And also flags on the last play of the game because they nailed the other teams quarterback as he was trying to kneel the ball. Those things show it was not isolated, and show what that coaching staff was used to allowing.

From what I hear game films from that night, and also other games, are very telling.

I still say that this sort of thing has its basis in the mentality that wants to make football a game of physical dominance rather than one of skill and strategy.