What Are You Gonna Do, Ref? Throw Me Out?

I am not a psychiatrist and do not pretend to know why some fans act in such outrageous ways that they even embarrass fans from their own teams, but some just seem not to be able to contain themselves......

I try very hard NOT to eject fans. They paid for their tickets & I figure they ought to be able to stay and watch their kid play......so long as the are reasonably well behaved. One nite, walking to my car after we'd ejected 3 fans from the Home Team, a lady walked past me whose kid played on the Home Team and said, "Thanks for ejecting those morons. They act like that every game and just embarrass the rest of us. The school doesn't do anything about their behavior and we wish more Refs would eject them!"

Tonite we had 3 men sitting together that seemed to be feeding off each other trying to out do each other in Refereeing from the stands and making outlandish comments while our backs were turned to the crowd. (Interestingly, the most obnoxious fans rarely make comments when the Referee is looking in their direction. Imagine that! Being anonymous, the the Referee that is, seems to be their shield of invincibility.)

Anyway, these 3 fellows had pushed things well beyond reason. Rather than confront them directly and feed their egos, during the Time Out, I stepped to the Athletic Director and asked her to chat with the 3 fellows and please caution them to be more respectful in their comments as we did NOT want to have to eject anyone. They were welcome to have fun cheering for their team but the obnoxious comments needed to be curtailed. She knew exactly which fellows I meant......

The AD did speak to the 3 as I'd requested.

Image by K.M. Klemencic via Flickr.com

As fate would have it following the Time Out, I then was in-bounding the ball right infront of them when one hollered out in a most sarcastic manner, "What are you gonna do, Ref? Throw me out?"

Since my back was to the stands I could not tell who'd said that, so I had to turn and asked in general, "Who said that?" The culprit proudly said, "I did. What are you gonna do?"

I replied, "I'm going to grant your request. You may leave now."

He was stunned, looked at the AD who nodded her head and pointed toward the exit. I think she'd done that before with this fellow......

Interesting that I never heard another word from the other 2 fellows the rest of the nite......

Refereeing can be such interesting entertainment......