The Kansas Legislature is considering a bill that would make it illegal to harass officials during sporting events, both verbally and physically. House Bill 2139 would make abuse of any sports official a Class B misdemeanor and would carry a fine of up to $1,000 and/or up to six months in prison. Any harassment against a minor sports official would increase the penalty to a Class A misdemeanor and would be punishable by a fine of up to $2,500 un/or p to a year in jail.
Youth sports is facing a nationwide shortage, something Wyoming has struggled with at all levels of school athletics. A common theme for the cause of the shortage is due to the verbal attacks towards officials during games, mostly from the stands. The legislation being discussed in Kansas is seen as a way to limit the scrutiny towards officials with the hopes of more people being willing to officiate.
During the Weekday Wakeup on SVI Radio, Duke & Dahl asked listeners what they thought about the bill, and if they agreed or disagreed with the idea of criminalizing those who verbally abuse officials. Here are their responses.
“Or people can put their big girl undies on and quit being a-holes. Don’t stress on something for 5 minutes that’s not going to matter In 5 years.”
“In my younger days, I did quite a bit of officiating at junior high level down. I always found it was easier to do it from the bleachers. Also, the best thing I found was a parent of a student who is participating, you can send them up to the parent to tell them if they don’t calm down, they will be ejected.”
“Are you joking! We can’t even enforce important laws without offending someone.”
“It doesn’t need to be a law. People just need to be nice.”
“Sad to see this happening. But those penalties are too stiff.”
“You bet! I agree people need to stop harassing the coaches and the refs!”
“We need to boot more people from events.”
“Define harassment. Isn’t harassment already illegal?”
“Might as well make a law with no fans in the stands.”
“YES!!!”
“I find it interesting that they are worried about this when there are actually really dangerous people out there that they are not taking care of.”
“Yes. It’s out of control, even in our valley! Let the game be about the kids for once.”
“Many years ago I used to ref high school basketball until I had an argument with a parent, so I handed the parent my whistle and told him if he can do it better then do it and I walked off and never picked up a whistle again.”
“14 year old ref was being hounded in a jr. jazz game. Another person told the dude to chill and the guy didn’t say another word. Perhaps we can keep ourselves in check without involving police or additional legislation?”
“What a sad commentary on our society that we have to make yet another law to regulate bad behavior.”
“Yes it should be legalized to protect the officials but harassment should be defined very specifically.”
