Here comes football back at us in full force, with high school games already under way before the traditional Labor Day weekend grand unveiling. Is there a better time to raise an issue that should be of concern to every
Here comes football back at us in full force, with high school games already under way before the traditional Labor Day weekend grand unveiling. Is there a better time to raise an issue that should be of concern to every parent of a player?
This isn’t about the physical risk factors, the potential head trauma and all the rest. Those are components of the game in an on-going conversation over whether it can be safely played at all. We will be discussing that again.
But there is another issue on the Big Island that replicates bad behavior we see all over the country, and that should be seriously reconsidered. We are privileged to live by Aloha here, but we could use a little more of it at high school football games.
More often than anyone wants to admit, parents lose their composure, screaming, sometimes cussing at, sometimes physically approaching officials at games.
If you’ve ever seen it, you wonder if these people are even aware of what they are doing. Their children are watching and there’s dad, red-faced, neck veins bulging, screaming at an official, drawing the attention of everyone around him representing players on that team.
It isn’t always dad, either.
Last year, four days after she started as athletics director at Pahoa High School, Hoku Haliniak found herself physically interjecting her body between a mother of a player and the action on the field.
“She was very adamant about protecting her child and she actually walked out onto the field,” Haliniak said last week. “We (athletic directors) all need to be out there because these things still happen.
“We see things happen at games sometimes that we don’t want to teach children.”
The solution to this, at least in theory, is right in front of us. Common sense and an opportunity to work with young athletes and make some part time money can solve this issue by the time next season rolls around.
For a moment, release any thoughts of particular personalities, and consider the fact, offered by BIIF executive director Lyle Crosier, that there are currently only 10 certified football officials on the Big Island.
“It’s more than a little problem,” Crosier said, “it’s really pretty serious when you think you can only cover two, maybe three games in a day. We have guys doing an afternoon game here, hopping in the car and driving to another game; we have 8-man football, we have a very full plate.”
And it’s not a shock if those officials hear fans screaming at them, trying to approach them, sometimes threatening them at both games.
Who wants that kind of fun?
Andrea Osborne, coordinator of officials for the Big West, PacWest and SCIACS — a Division 3 conference in Southern California — was in town recently for a three-day high school basketball invitational that she and her team used to evaluate attract potential officials based on their knowledge of the rules and their comportment on the floor.
Osborne was hoping to generate some interest in locals coming out to get involved in officiating. It’s either that, or sit by the phone and wait for someone to call and ask for an opportunity.
She was looking for basketball officials, and she found a couple, but the need is even greater for knowledgeable folks in striped shirts on the football field.
The other point about the dwindling number for Big Island football officials is that, “Let’s face it,” Crosier said, “none of us is getting younger, and that includes these guys.
“We really need some young guys who know the game and would want to help, to step up,” he said.
The view from 1,000 feet above the stands on a Friday night — or whenever they play in these stretched-out schedules that free up availability of officials— seems to present an obvious solution. Instead of screaming at overworked officials and embarrassing your family and the school, make it all better by taking some classes, getting certified and officiating yourself.
That would reduce the quantity of the problem in the stands and help the issue of too few officials available to work games.
Crosier regularly packs applications for officiating when he attends games and hands out as many as he can. He likes to offer them to the outspoken fans.
“They always say they don’t have the time,” Crosier said. “They have the time to go to the game, but they don’t have the time to officiate? I hear it a lot.”
Haliniak has a video she shows on parents’ night before practices start in each season. The video includes many images of parents going wild in the stands, the chaos it creates, the confusion and concern that ripples through the crowd.
In a way, the parents get to see what they look like before they lose emotional control at a game.
“It’s a really good video,” Haliniak said, “but it isn’t a cure-all, it’s a help.”
At Ka’u, athletics director Kalei Namohala, who doubles as BIIF football coordinator, said she always looks for ill-mannered behavior in the stands to correct, and to reinforce that expectation she has announcements about sportsmanship and cheering for both teams announced several times in a game.
“We try everything we can,” Namohala said. “We have a mandatory parents meeting in which we make them sign a parent code of conduct, and I think that has helped.”
Part of that code states that coaches may not be contacted immediately after games, they may not be asked about playing time issues, strategy and they may not mention other students.
“Those are some issues our coaches do not have to address,” she said. “But we still see things form time-to-time. I see it more often at road games, but it doesn’t matter where it happens.
“When they get belligerent, that crosses a line and then we have to kick them out. It’s a sad thing to see.”
When that happens, when the belligerent parent creates a scene that debases the family and the school, the parent is escorted out, and what’s left is the measure of the loss.
Some player was just embarrassed and has to play the rest of his game consumed with distracting thoughts about ohana and whether his parents were more interested in antagonizing the officials or watching their son compete.
We can be better than this. Let’s try
