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High school sports leaders urging parents to quit riding the refs

The Arkansas Activities Associations has co-signed a blunt message to parents at high school sporting events: Calm down.

The Arkansas Activities Associations has co-signed a blunt message to parents at high school sporting events: Calm down.

With gyms jumping with all kinds of excitement across the state, basketball gets everyone pretty excited, but in too many cases, too excited.

They say it’s causing referees and officials to quit leaving a shortage of officials in many places.

“In this day and time of violence that we see in our society, we want to protect the kids,” said Normal Gilchrest, a sports official for 35 years. “But we also want to protect ourselves as officials on the floor. You try to focus on the game that you are officiating at that time, but I will tell you there are some things that bother you and there are some things that are part of the experience of calling a game that you don't forget.”

We see the scary clips from across the country with parents attacking officials verbally and physically leading to disruptions in games. With that backdrop, the National Federation of State High School Associations penned an op-ed. They, along with the AAA’s Lance Taylor, are telling those leather-lunged parents in the stands to cool it. 

“Hey, these are people too. They make mistakes. They don't mean to. They don't want one team or another,” said Derek Walter, the AAA’s assistant executive director. “It's just not fun to get yelled at every night.”

At the same time, the organization got help from actual student athletes by putting out a video with do's and don'ts for moms and dads.

The op-ed letter said 75 percent of refs who quit blame quote "adult behavior,” and 80 percent give up being an official just two years into donning the stripes. They hope these messages reverse that trend.

“We'd love to have anybody sign up to be an official,” Walter said, pointing to this link. “It's super easy. The pay is not why you do it. You do it for the love of the game.”

A point reinforced by Giilcrest.

“It allows you to stay close to the game,” he said. “It also gives us the opportunity to be a part of the structure and the growing-up of young athletes. And hopefully we can be a part of making them better citizens.”

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