Twitter: @Kyle_DaLuz
I recently became an employee at Mass Premier Courts
(MPC) in Foxboro and during my brief time there, I’ve witnessed some pretty
intense AAU basketball games – along with the occasional blow out. As a
scorekeeper, I get to see a lot of the good things that come along with amateur
athletics – the competition, effort and hustle, and the desire to advance to
win tournaments.
In contrast, I’ve also witnessed a few negative aspects
that come along with AAU basketball. Certainly, the good outweighs the bad, but
one vivid incident from this past weekend struck me.
I was assigned four games last Saturday afternoon. The
first two were close, clean games that came down to the wire – the best kind of
games to watch. The third game was not so clean or competitive. An 8th
grade team from Connecticut brought out an extreme negative that I’d never seen
in youth basketball before.
This particular team from CT was struggling early from
both sides of the floor. They had difficulty shooting and found themselves in a
pretty significant hole early on. While trailing by about 20 points to a
superior opponent, the two coaches for the CT team began a vicious verbal assault
on the two referees, who were doing a pretty decent job from my view point of
calling the game fairly and as best they could. Every time the whistle was
blown against their team, they’d contest with an “Oh c’mon, sir! Are you
serious?” When a call was not made on what they thought was a violation against
their opponent, which coincidentally seemed to be every other time down the
floor, a “That’s a foul, sir! Call it both ways, sir!” would be hollered from
the bench. A few profanities were mixed in as well.
There is a difference in this sort of thing happening once
or twice a game versus continuous badgering from tip-off all the way to the
final buzzer. After about 10 minutes of constant yapping from the sideline, the
head coach was assessed a technical foul and was told to remain seated for the
remainder of the contest – which I’d like to point out, was an order that was
not followed.
The game became closer in the second half, yet the team
from Connecticut could not make up the deficit. The players themselves had no
real issues with the flow of play until the second half, in which they followed
the example set by their coaches and started to complain to the zebras as well.
With a double-digit lead and under three minutes to play,
the coach of the winning team instructed his players to pass the ball around to
waste a little clock and look for a good shot in the process. The coach from CT
did not take a liking to this, as he hollered over across the scorer’s table,
“This isn’t fun coach! This is NOT fun! This is not how basketball should be
played!” The other coach did not hear this, but seeing as I was sitting right
there in the crossfire, I did.
In the final minutes, the CT team had to play with only
four players, because this coach thought it was a logical decision to foul
while being down close to 15 points with under a minute to play.
Obviously, they were trying to make a point. One player
was thrown out of the game due to an aggressive hit while trying to
intentionally foul. The referee that had issued the technical foul earlier on
told the coach that someone was going to get hurt if the aggressive play
continued, and got a response of, “It’s all your fault, sir! All your fault.”
Nothing else really ensued post-game, but this was
something that was so outrageous that I felt should never take place during anytime
of competition.
Don’t get me wrong, I follow all four major professional
sports and have watched many a sports games in my life. I understand games are
intense, and sometimes tempers boil over. There is a difference between being
frustrated with a call by an official, and being on someone’s case for the
entire duration of a contest.
The good certainly outweighs the bad in all of these
tournaments by a long shot, but this is one incident that stuck out in
particular as something so ridiculous that I feel should never take place in
youth athletics.
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