It’s Time To Protect Our Sports Officials, No Butts About It

Your son gets in a fight, mouths off, blows off school - whatever. So you ground him. Then you realize that unless you have a blank check to pay for child care, you’re pretty much grounded, too.

There was that kind of feel to Bob West’s weekend.

Anonymous for 20 years as a referee, West has been accorded his 15 minutes of unwanted fame for being the victim of a Colville High School wrestler’s head butt after a match Jan. 18. The wrestler faces an assault charge in Stevens County and has been suspended. Someone else took his place in the district tournament.

Someone took West’s place, too.

This was the first year West’s name had come up to work in the postseason, but in the wake of the Colville incident his officials association decided it would be in the best interest of both the sport and the referee if West took February off.

“I’m not happy about it,” West said, “but if I’m on the board I’d probably feel the same way.”

West’s health was an issue - he still experiences neck and back pain from the attack - and so was liability. And then there was the distraction factor.

“The focus needs to be on the kids out there wrestling,” West said, “not people saying, ‘That’s the referee who got head-butted.”’

Unless, perhaps, a state legislator says it.

On Thursday, about 15 men and women gathered in the office of Spokane County Prosecutor Jim Sweetser and came away agreeing on the need for legislation to protect officials at athletic events from assault and harassment - whether it comes from spectators or participants.

Bob West didn’t intend to be the poster boy for referee abuse, but feels the role being thrust upon him.

“We’re out there for the love of the sport,” West said. “We don’t get paid enough to take the kind of abuse we’re taking. We need something so people who put on that striped shirt don’t feel in jeopardy.”

But another law?

Involving the legislature to keep the peace in our gyms could be seen as a sign the apocalypse is upon us - except that 17 other states already have laws specific to sports officials in place. In Washington, at least two previous bills have failed to pass.

“We’ve got statutes that offer specific protection to police, transit people, firefighters,” said Mark Casey, an attorney and women’s basketball official. “In the overall picture, people don’t put sports officials at the top of the list as far as needing protection.”

But Sweetser, who wouldn’t seem to need to drum up more business, believes it’s time.

“Sports contests are more aggressive and officials are becoming more vulnerable,” he said. “Officials stand for enforcing the rules, for fairness, and those institutions need to be maintained. The integrity of our athletic programs is really at stake.”

Now, nobody’s trying to take away your right to boo. The spectator who yells, “Don’t quit your day job!” when a ref blows a block/charge call isn’t the target.

The guy who growls, “I know where you live,” is.

“We’re addressing a malicious, conscious design to intimidate, harass and assault,” Sweetser said.

But even if you change laws, can you change the climate?

“We’re having a hard time recruiting and retaining officials because they see officials being attacked and very little consequence,” said Casey.

“From a women’s basketball standpoint, we’ve had tremendous difficulty in keeping women officials. Not because they’ve been physically assaulted, but just because of verbal intimidation. We’d like more women to be involved, but they don’t need the abuse.”

Anymore than Bob West needed a crack across the brow from an overheated teenager.

The societal problems in and out of sports that tend to rationalize such behavior aren’t going to be legislated away, but now protection comes first.

“If this incident is a catalyst toward pushing legislation through,” West said, “to me it’s worth it. I owe that to my fellow officials.”

And what is it the rest of us owe?

Perhaps we shouldn’t underestimate the power of positive peer pressure. Friends don’t let friends head-butt refs, jump umpires after the final out or use what should have been an embarrassing incident like the one in Colville as an us-against-the-world rallying point for his team.

We might even make it legal to be civilized.

, DataTimes MEMO: You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.

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