Posted on: Tuesday, May 3, 2005
Time for action for abused refs
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist
When his wife handed him a copy of the Sunday paper with the headline "Fan shoves referee at Kalaheo vs. Kaiser game" Hardy Spoehr's reaction wasn't much different from a lot of us.
"My first thought was: 'Oh, no, here's another incident,' " Spoehr said.
Indeed, you don't have to be a member of the Hawai'i Officials Association, as Spoehr, a veteran football official, has been, to shudder at the growing trend here.
When a male spectator came out of the stands Saturday night and shoved a basketball referee from behind during a halt in play, it was the latest in a string of incidents here aimed at officials across several sports. Meanwhile, a bill that would have established some strong penalties for harming an official at an athletic event was put on hold in a state senate committee in February so a "task force" could be convened to make recommendations.
The hope is that this latest incident will help inspire urgency to the process. That it will galvanize the senate's Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs Committee, which held hearings on the bill, to get the "task force" off the drawing board and into action by the end of the current session, as pledged.
And that the Legislature will take those recommendations to heart for the next session and not let them collect Capitol dust.
Special committees and task forces can be useful devices for a couple of purposes. On one hand, they are a smooth way to bury a measure without appearing to blow it off completely. On the other, they can, if earnestly employed, help provide real solutions.
You hope the latter is what is in store this time because legislation designed to help protect officials from violence and intimidation is long overdue here. It is a subject that has been kicked around by lawmakers without resolution for a decade or more now and, as recent headlines and growing testimony underline, the need is growing, not lessening.
More than 20 states already have laws designed to help protect officials from this kind of violence and intimidation.
Leagues and schools have some rules in place to deal with coaches and players who cross the line and more; tougher penalties can be set by the state.
Too often, as it stands now, very little has been done other than escorting the offending spectator from the scene unless a serious injury results. But there is much more that needs to be done when it comes to spectators coming out of the crowd during events or confronting officials afterward.
That isn't much of a deterrent to those who have committed the offenses or others who would follow their lead. The lack of punishment serves to make officials targets and at some point it is not only going to cost sports some of their most able current practitioners but future ones as well.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.
