The Biggest Challenge in School Sports? The Fans

My View

Inappropriate adult behavior at high school athletic events throughout the country has reached epidemic proportions.

When more than 2,000 high school athletic directors were asked in a recent national survey what they like least about their job, 62 percent said it was “dealing with aggressive parents and adult fans.”

The men and women who wear the black and white stripes on the basketball courts and playing fields agree with that dim perspective of fandom. In fact, almost 80 percent of interscholastic sports officials quit after the first two years on the job, and unruly parents are cited as the reason why. Verbal abuse of officials by heckling fans has been an issue for many years, but accounts in recent years of physical assaults on officials are deplorable and indefensible.

As a result, there is a growing shortage of high school officials nationwide. No referees, judges or umpires means no more games.