Not "literate" enough to put in a link......but I'm a native western Pennsylvanian and saw this article on the Post Gazette this morning. Thought you'd be interested....
'Soccer wars' worry WPIAL
High school athletic association says bad behavior is too common
Sunday, November 23, 2008
By Bill Moushey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
When high school soccer referee Gary Turk left the field in Leechburg after a game on Sept. 25, he was still unnerved by the furor caused by his ejection of the Kiski Area coach. But that was before he found someone had scratched $1,300 worth of damage on his car. Then he was really shook.
On Aug. 31, Riverview soccer coach Pete Kariotis had already received a yellow misconduct warning card for shouting at an official when, according to the official's report, he yelled at the ref again, saying "the call was horrible and I just gave the opponent the match."
Last month, referee Stan Hunter was trying to separate two fighting players in a junior high school match between Springdale and West Shamokin when he noticed a woman charging onto the field.
"I told her she could not enter the field -- she told me it was her son and I wasn't going to stop her," Mr. Hunter's report said. Then she pushed through the ref, grabbed her son, took him to the sidelines and screamed at him about how he shouldn't "take that from anyone," Mr. Hunter said.
Welcome to the Western Pennsylvania soccer wars.
In unprecedented numbers, these supposedly civil games have been turned into sometimes violent, often verbally obscene events on the field that spill over into threats and property damage off it.
Some officials, according to Mr. Turk, are simply turning down officiating assignments rather than put up with the unruliness.
According to Timothy O'Malley, executive director of the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League, 80 percent of the ejections (76 of 94) at fall sports events this year, through Oct. 17, took place at soccer matches. Roughly half of them were for "profanity, dissent or disrespect," and half for violent play. During the same period, only 17 football ejections, 11 of them for violent play, were recorded.
The problem is big enough that the WPIAL is demanding an immediate return to civility and sportsmanship. "The hope is that they accept the responsibility of demonstrating effective behavior... zero tolerance ... just like it is in the classroom," said Mr. O'Malley.
WPIAL reports document a Yough High School student who was tossed after using a vulgarity to describe what he was going to do to the ref; a South Allegheny player who called an official a derisive word about his sexuality; and, among a wide assortment of other violations, an angry Canon McMillan boy who responded with an expletive when a ref asked him to put his shirt back on.
More troubling for Mr. O'Malley was that 10 of those suspended for profanity, dissent and disrespect and other unacceptable behavior were coaches.
There's the Beaver coach who repeatedly called an official a "liar" and "cheater;" the Bethel Park coach who called a ref "gutless" before his unscheduled exit; the Ambridge coach who took 10 minutes to exit the field after an expulsion for dissent; and the Shaler girls' coach who kicked a ball across the field after his ejection and then verbally abused a ref from outside the field of play. During the same period, two football coaches were ejected for unsportsmanlike conduct.
There's more, according to reports filed with the WPIAL:
� Assistant Coach Rob Chester of Highlands was ejected, failed to leave the field in a timely fashion on Oct. 9 during a game against Hampton, then angrily confronted one official in the parking lot as fans accosted the other official a he tried to get to his car.
� On Sept. 9, as Don Buzzard, an official at a Quaker Valley girl's game against Freedom, stood at the scoring table, a Quaker Valley girl who had suffered a knee injury screamed at him: "Because of your refereeing, my season is ruined. My senior season and you [expletive] it up." After he handed her a red card, she screamed "I don't [expletive] care. My senior season is "[expletive] ruined anyway:"
� At an Oct. 7 game when a Southmoreland player was ejected in a contentious home game against Thomas Jefferson, official Jerry Kalka reported: "... following the game, we were flicked off, swore at, had rocks pelted at our cars, players verbally assaulting us until we left the school."
He said a lack of security forced the officials to drive their cars through a gantlet of angry fans to leave.
Bad behavior spreads
The behavior problems in soccer affect not only Western Pennsylvania but the entire state, causing various jurisdictions of the PIAA to try to tighten sportsmanship rules, an idea first broached in 2005 by school leaders in Central Pennsylvania.
Proponents of stricter rules called for players and coaches to agree to a wide-ranging code of conduct that, among other things, would make teams finish games a player short when a player or coach was ejected.
The PIAA didn't go that far, but last year it approved rules causing anyone given a "yellow card," or misconduct warning, to be removed from a game for five minutes (previous rules only forced players to temporarily leave the playing surface) and anyone who is ejected to be suspended for a game. Game officials and school district personnel now must submit written reports to the WPIAL on every ejection.
Some schools are taking punitive actions that exceed the PIAA standards.
For instance, at Serra Catholic, a coach was ordered to take a coaching ethics class after a disruption and ejection and a student who punched a South Allegheny player who was on the ground was suspended for a game and ordered to "write a letter of apology to the South Allegheny athletic director and soccer coach."
Pine Richland, Shaler, Highlands, North Allegheny and Central Catholic high schools, among others, have extended suspensions beyond one game on coaches and players after ejections.
A North Allegheny player who punched an opponent in the groin was suspended for five games and threatened with removal from the team if he exhibited further poor conduct.
"Those types of things can't be defended. What you are looking for is someone [the coach] who is supposed to be a model of acceptable behavior even in cases where something occurs where they could easily act badly," Mr. O'Malley said.
Ron Wilcher is in his 32nd year of coaching soccer. For the past 24 seasons he has coached the highly successful Mt. Lebanon boys' varsity team. He's also a WPIAL soccer representative and head of the Western Pennsylvania Soccer Coaches Association.
"It's appalling that there were so many coaches involved, such a large percentage, the ejections among players and coaches, hinging on profanity and foul and abusive language directed at officials," he said. "We need to do this ourselves. If we're going to wait for further restrictions, we'll end up changing the game and I don't want to see that happen," he said.
What about referees?
Some schools have complained the root cause of the problem is bad officiating and less than sportsmanlike conduct by referees.
The coaches of Indiana High's girls' team were tossed after officials called a critical penalty kick in overtime in a game against Derry. One of the coaches, Alireza Afshar, said all he did was ask for an explanation. He said he was told to "shut up" and then ejected when he questioned why the official was talking to him so harshly.
"Are referees not held to the same standard as coaches? Are they not expected to be good role models and display good sportsmanship?" he asked in his report to the WPIAL after apologizing for his own behavior.
No one rationalizes situations like the $1,300 in damages to Mr. Turk's car at Kiski Area, which he partially attributed to a lack of security. Or the harsh language of the Riverview coach who asked an official if he got his "referees license out of a cereal box" as he left the field. Or the junior high parent who charged the field during a fight between players.
Kiski athletic officials did not respond to a request for comment. Riverview Athletic Director Robert Kariotis, who is the coach's father, said he told his son he does not condone such conduct. He said that was the only such incident this year. Pete Kariotis did not respond to a request to comment.
Mr. O'Malley, who is disturbed by the rash of bad behavior, and the WPIAL board have told all involved that if this kind of conduct do not end, more punitive measures will be considered. He said he believes an overall outcome of improved behavior will trickle down from the coaches.
"Hopefully we will see an elevated awareness in the coaches that results in a decrease in coaches and players and parents behaving badly," he said.
Post Gazette Staff Writer Bill Moushey can be reached at 412-263-1449 or at
[email protected].First published on November 23, 2008 at 12:00 am
