r— Amateur refs face increased violence at loca! games Bob Mackin News Reporter RON Ward went 18 years as an amateur soccer referee without being touched by an angry player. Then, on Nov. 1, last year, he was pushed, punched, stomped and left face- down on the pitch of North Vancouver's Inter-River Park. Tr was the most serious of four recent assaults on North Shore soccer referees, But it’s a problem not confined te soccer. Game in, game out, amateur sports offi- cials everywhere have to endure disparag- ing, sometimes threatening, remarks from players, coaches and fans. Some referees, like Ward, have even been attacked. Ward was assigned to officiate a Metro League senior men's recreational match between host Deep Cove Alumni and visit- ing A.C. Richmond. Since this was a Division Two match, no linesmen were provided, making Ward the only official. Leading 3-1 late in the first half, a Deep Cove forward threatened to make it 4-1 as he took the ball deep into the Richmond zone. The Richmond goalkeeper tackled his rush- ing opponent to the ground and the ball went out of bounds. Ward summoned the goalkeeper for a yellow card citation. Despite the obvious foul, the goalkeeper irgued Ward's call. “He made some comment to me that I honestly can’r remember,” said the 53-year-old Ward, who grew up in East London and played semi-pro soccer in Britain. “It was some- thing Sike ‘] never did anything.’ I made an English comment, which was to the tunc of: ‘Pye been in this game a very long time. I haven’t just come across on the banana boat.’ ” Richmond players swarmed him. “T got a punch in the side of the face from: somewhere and that put me on the ground. As soon as I hit the ground face- down, there was somebody stomping me on the back. After that I couldn’t move.” In fact, he had a bruise in the shape of five cleats. . Deep Cove players stepped in to quell the furor, and an off- duty nurse who was watching the game tended a motionless Ward until an ambulance arrived. Police came and tried to piece together what happened. Ward didn’t require hospital- ization, but the pain was so bad that for a week he couldn't return to his job as an administrator at West Vancouver's municipal works yard. . The coach of the predominantly Indo-Canadian A.C. Richmond team said he didn’t see any of his players touch Ward. Jaswant Mann, a vocal critic of the quality of Metro League officiating, claimed Ward’s comment was racist. Ward denicd that his comment was in any way racist, and said that if any players felt they were insulted, they could have walked off the field in protest and sought his reprimand trom league officials. “We're only there trying to do our best,” he said “We're not there to create problems, make bad calls on purpose or call someone our because you don’t like the look of them. That’s not the way. We're in it because we want to put something back in the sport.” Mctro League officials moved swiftly. Two days after the incident, A.C, Richmond was expelled from the league and its players suspended indefinitely, North Vancouver RCMP inves- tigated the melée, but Crown counsel decided a month later not to proceed with charges because witnesses couldn’t posi- tively identify Ward’s attackers. “We don’t really care why he was assaulted,” said Metro League president Willy Azzi. “The mere fact that he was assaulted is enough for us. There was proof. We inquired, we had witnesses, and went right through the whole thing. We didn’t take it lightly.” Ward’s incident wasn’t the first time that violence curtailed an A.C. Richmond game in 1998. Referee Carlos Morzan abandoned a Sept. 27 match in North Vancouver’s Cleveland Park. Two Richmond players had already been cjected and another three received yellow cards. Morzan sensed a brawl was imminent, so he stopped the game with 25 minutes to go. When he blew the whistle and tried leaving the field, he was punched by a Richmond supporter and racially insulted by another. He didn’t feel it was safe to go to his car until four RCMP officers attended the scene. Morzan had a similar experience on Jan. 16 of this year after a Metro League game between Norburn and Bosna at Burnaby Lake. A supporter‘of the Bosna squad, Morzan said, was so unhappy with his officiating that he threatened to fol- low Morzan to his house and kill him after the 4-3 loss. Because of violence against referees, Ward said the leagues will become more dependent upon aging officials like him; newcomers will be scared away by the horror stories. ng the whisti north shore news SUNDAY FOCUS NEWS photo Paul McGrath VETERAN North Vancouver soccer referee Ron Ward was assaulted last year during a men's recreational league match by players who disputed his call. “When teams see me turn up with grey hair, they think to themselves, OK, well he’s been around a few years. They get a youngster and they thiak, casy prey. They can take liberties or try to.” . That's what he believes happencd Jan. 23 when Ward's 26 year-old son Paul officiated a scrappy North Shore intermedi- ate league match between the Beavers and Atlas Lions. He stopped the game after the Atlas Lions’ goalkeeper shoved him. As he tried to leave the field, another player poked him in the face. The goalkeeper was suspended for 16 games, while his teammate won’t be able to play in organized soccer in B.C. until 2000. British Columbia Soccer Association executive director Rick Cuttell said the organization now takes the safety of its 3,500 officials more seriously. A new policy requires that all serious incidents be reported directly to the association’s head office in Burnaby. Cuttell said notices of suspension are dis- seminated throughout the province to ensure that banned players don’t reappear in a sanctioned match elsewhere. “We have to show that we protect our referees from this kind of thing and we will be taking action against coaches or players,” said Cuttell, whose organization counts 100,000 players and 5,000 coaches. BUSE against officials in any sport can be comparable to road rage, said Simon Fraser University sports athropologist Noel Dyck. Calm, respectable peopic, he said, may lose sight of reality when they become involved as a spectator or participant. “When people step into a sporting venue, it’s a different space than a lot of other aspects of everyday life,” he said. “Sometimes people end up acting in ways they would never consider doing in some other setting. Sport is about excite- ment. Sport is about contests, trying to. win, trying fo over- come things. People can lose track.” Dyck, who has coached and officiated both soccer and track and field, calls che demands placed on officials cruel and unusual. “A baseball player who hits the ball one time out of three is a .333 hitter, and they're pretty good. Nobody expects a hockey player to score a goal every time they get on ice. Yet, somehow, we expect officials to make the right decision every time. Officials make mistakes; it’s part of the game. If they’re bad referees, there’s ways and means to report thar.” Compared with the illegal use of performance-enhancing drugs, assaults on sports officials are relatively understudied. A 1994 survey of the abuse of baseball and softball umpires in Ohio found 11% of the 782 respondents claimed to have been assaulted sometime during their careers. The most common type of abuse, reported by 44%, involved pushing, shoving or grabbing. Hitting and punching was noted by 25%. Only 10% of the time, however, did assailants suffer legal consequences. Indeed, many incidents are handled internally by sports associations or leagues. Officials who have been victimized often dismiss their own misfortune as “part of the game” and don’t complain to police. In B.C., referees, linesmen and umpires don’t have much clour, says Jerry Tregaskis, provincial secretary of the B.C. Umpires Association. Unlike coaches, who have the Coaches’ Association of B.C., there is no umbrella organization for all officials. Tregaskis participated in an all-sport committee lobbying for such a group between 1991 and 1993. Provincial funding fell through, he says, so officials have no unified voice on issues like abuse. “There was a great desire by all, but it’s difficult for offi- cials to do,” Tregaskis says. “None have much money.” BarrysMano, president of the National Association of Sports Officials, in Racine, Wisc., has lobbied a dozen U.S. states to stiffen fines and jail sentences for people convicted of referee assault. In California, for example, someone who assaults an official now faces a year in jail and a $2,000 fine — Sunday, May 9, 1999 - North Shore News - 3 double the regular penalty for assault. Mano said referee assault profoundly affects those who witness it, especially children, who might believe that it’s acceptable. Most of the abuse occurs at the amateur level, said Mano, which makes the violence even worse because amateur officials are in the game for fun and fitness, not money. (Soccer officials of Wards calibre receive a S40 honorarium per game. } Referees who try to carry on after a serious incident may become less effective because they fear being assaulted by another player, coach or fan. Other of h- cials may simply quit. Mano said sports associations around North America could soon face a critical shortage of referces. “Twas a basketball referee for 23 years, if | wanted to go our and work soccer today, Pd have a full schedule, no problem. We're not bringing people in to the officiating endeavor in the numbers that we need to.” Dyck said the problem has already arrived in areas of England where some children’s and recreational soc- cer leagues play without referees. “It’s not because there aren't people that understand the game; they’re not prepared to put on that official’s shirt,” said Dyck. “You don’t have a game unless you have some sort of restraint. I guess you get a chance for people, once they’ve dried up their supply of referees, to think about well, are we going to have a game at all?” HE British Columbia Amateur Hockey Association has 5,000 officials, but at least 30% of them won't be back next season. Referee-in-chief David Murray admits half of those who hang up their striped shirt for good each year do so because they can no tonger tolerate the verbal and physical abuse. Murray said the BCAHA is trying to attract rookie referees and linesmen with the promise of a “mentor shadow” program that pairs young officials with an experienced adult. In addi- tion to providing practical experience, Murray said the pres- ence of a third, mature party ensures that there’s less abuse of the novice official. Hockey official Kent Tinkess said the program has limits. The New Westminster ref said players, coaches and fans aren’t likely to abuse an official if there's an adult mentor standing by. But what happens when the mentor moves on to help newer officials elsewhere? Tinkess is no stranger to abuse, He’s been a hockey official for half his 28 years and hasn’t gone a game without being the butt of profane comments from a coach, player or fan. He said he offictates because it’s good exercise and he gets paid, albeir the princely sum of $25 a game. “I've had mothers (of players) come up on the glass and scream at me, actually climb up the boards, lean over the giass, and I’ve had to tell them to get off the glass,” Tinkess said. He had a brush with violence four years ago when he served as linesman of a juvenile division game at South Surrey - Arena. A player from the host Semiahmoo team got a match penalty after intentionally shooting a puck at the referees. “The coach went berserk, so we rossed him. It took us 10 to 15 minutes to get the game going because we were getting harassed. The players who were suspended were heckling us from the bleachers.” Semiahmoo already had a depleted roster, owing to the sus- pensions against players who brawled in a previous game. With five minutes left, che number of Semiahmoo players in the penalty box or dressing room outnumbered those available to -play on ice. The game was ended. Remaining players left the ice withour incident, but the Semiahmoo coach tracked down the officials in the tunnel leading to their dressing room. “I just tried to stand in the coach’s way and Ict the referee pass,” said Tinkess. “He tried to push past me so hard I put my hands on him and told him to go back to his dressing room before he gets in more trouble.” “He kept pushing. Finally I had enough of this so I started to hold my ground. I grabbed the front of his shirt to restrain him. He actually said ‘}’m going to kill you.’ I wasn't going to let him pass. He was beet red, quite furious, obviously not in control of himself. After he realized I wasn’t going to let him pass he told me three or four times to let go of him and I told- him. ‘Go back to your dressing room and I will let go of you, but I’m not letting go of you while you're trying to get at the referee.” ” The coach punched Tinkess’ on the back of his helmet before walking away. : He received an additional two match penalties — one for threatening the referee and onc for striking Tinkess. “We walked out as a group to our cars, and that’s not the only time I’ve had to leave the arena with my partners.” He didn’t hear whether the coach was disciplined and the BCAHA didn’r contact him to elaborate on the written post-game report. Tinkess concedes he didn’t contact police because the coach didn't cause any serious damage or injury. “Some of the volunteers in the leagues have the attitude, well you’re out there, you deserve to get hit, you ask for this kind of treatment. * “It’s supposed to be fun, but when that kind of thing hap- pens you wonder, do I bother going back?”