Zip It

On this week’s Keepin’ It Real, Cam has a message for parents whose children are playing high school sports as his youngest children enter their final year of high school. Every high school sport is suffering from a shortage of officials and referees. Zip it, he says, please just zip it. 

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The second contact on a volleyball can be a double contact so long as it’s one attempt and doesn’t go over the net. That’s a new volleyball rule set to begin this season. For years parents in the stands would holler “double” whenever they saw what they thought was a double touch on the ball on the second attempt. Now that rule is gone. Unless you know volleyball, none of this may make any sense. This rule change is a big deal.

This school year my favorite youngest son and daughter, our twins, begin what will likely be their final experience with organized sports. They’re high schoolers. Last night my daughter’s first volleyball match of the season was in Birmingham. My wife is her coach. Tonight, my son’s football team plays their first game against their archrival.

Both teams require a parent meeting before the season begins. It’s usually held in the school gym or cafeteria and the coaches go over the season’s logistics and such and make their requests of the parents. This may be unique to our school, but my hunch is that it’s the same everywhere. At both this year’s football and volleyball meetings, the coaches implored the parents to leave the referees and officials alone. Both coaches mentioned that there was a shortage of officials. The veteran officials were quitting, and too few new ones were signing up. The reason? One word: parents.

In Texas, the association that manages volleyball officials said that if they feel their officials are treated poorly or threatened, which happens, they will not allow the officials to return to that school, effectively forcing the school to forfeit every home match since the home team is responsible for booking officials. And our football coach told the gathered parents that when the game is over, no one is to speak to the officials. They are to be allowed to leave the field and go to their cars without a word from the fans. Violations of this may result in the offending parent not being allowed back into the stadium.

And the problem is spiraling. Since the veteran officials are leaving, the few new ones are being accelerated through their training and are now officiating games at speeds and skill levels beyond their little experience. They’re doing the best they can but likely making poor calls due to inexperience. The parents are losing their minds. And referees and officials are wondering if the little they earn filling this role for the kids and for the sake of the sport is worth it. It’s hard to argue differently.

All this is certainly a part of something larger in our nation today. And I don’t have time right now to hypothesize on what that may be. Just know this: The second contact on a volleyball can be a double contact so long as it’s one attempt and doesn’t go over the net. It’s a new rule. If you see it differently, zip it. The same goes for the holding call. And your fast-food order, that guy in traffic who cut you off, and the reservation agent on the phone. Just zip it. There are already too few people willing to do the job, whatever it is.

I’m Cam Marston and I’m just trying to Keep It Real.