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Unsportsmanlike Conduct: We Need to Forgive the Refs

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Any sports fan has experienced it hundreds if not thousands of times: The sudden stoppage of play right as everyone starts getting into a rhythm. If you are at the event in person, you plan on getting the 45-60 seconds they just wasted back any way you can. Normally this little piece of vengeance comes in the form of boos, jeers, and colorful language. But, what if a part of your financial future is staked upon a 60-minute contest and you watch someone strip it away based on a ruling you don’t agree with? People have been hurt for a lot less. People have been killed for a lot less.  Whether it’s a little league parent harassing an umpire or a National Football League (NFL) referee receiving death threats in the mail, this epidemic of abuse against referees has exploded in recent years and it needs to be brought under control.[2]


Little League... Big Violence


The 2022 New Jersey Superior Court case Neely v. Otero is just one example of the abuse towards referees, but stands apart as an example of umpires using the law to fight back.[3] This dispute didn’t happen over a professional contest, it came as a result of an under-13 year old (“U13") baseball tournament.[4]


The defendant, Jerry Otero, was coaching his son’s little league team when he believed the 72-year-old umpire James Neely had made a few too many poor calls.[5] After Otero was ejected for cursing and verbally harassing Neely in front of his son’s team and their parents, Otero decided to take his grievances a step further and “without warning or justification, struck [Neely], in front of the players of two little league baseball teams…”.[6] Neely suffered a fractured jaw and a concussion.[7] However, after bringing Otero to civil court, Neely was awarded $650,000.00 after arbitration.[8]


Rising Tempers: Brought To You by DraftKings Sportsbook!


It bears repeating: the Neely case was a little league game with zero money on the line. With the advent of sports betting, there is seemingly endless amounts of money being placed on the results of semiprofessional and professional games.[9] Pair this monetary factor with the facelessness and implied license to say whatever on social media and you get a toxic feedback loop.


Referees, by virtue of their outsized impact on results and statistics that are a part of the ever-specific parlays, can get it as bad or worse.[10] It is good that damages can be recovered by those affected, and the monetary risk of physical violence is a sufficient deterrent to many. There have also been policy efforts from leagues like USA Soccer which are youth competition focused and outline “stronger sanctions for any form of physical or non-physical abuse towards referees.“[11]However, money and rule changes are nothing in the face of the mental and physical danger that innocent participants are placing themselves in whenever they step on the field and fail to perform up to the standards of their ”investors”. So,sports betting is clearly not going away, and the anger keeps building as the monetary stakes get higher. What can we do we do about it?


What’s Next? Forgive the Ref


The solution is perhaps easier said than done: Forgive the referees. A recent effort has been made by practicing referees to use strategies based on scientific research and legal principles to alleviate fans’ perceived grievances against them.[12]The website forgivetheref.com was created by field hockey influencer Cris Maloney–who refs at the high school through international levels– to provide resources for coaches and parents feeling slighted by a bad call by using mental health strategies to “end[] revenge cravings and a coach [or parent’s] desire to punish the ref.”[13]


The campaign is in its infancy, it really only addresses youth athletics, and as of yet it does not address the monetary motivation for harassment. However, it does represent a fresh, promising, and non-punitive step forward that may stop the negative behavior at the source rather than punishing the symptom.[14] To make up for what the campaign lacks, it is worth considering that this is a problem that should not be on the victims to solve. We as consumers bear some responsibility to hold ourselves and our fellow spectators accountable for our behavior in the age of live betting. Admittedly it is not much, but we must start somewhere to head off the inevitable tragedies before they occur.


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Adam Kimmel (staff writer) is a 1L who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2021 with major in Communications and a minor in History. He then worked for four years at Vanguard before leaving to pursue a career in law and intramural soccer at Villanova. After graduation he hopes to become a sports agent. 



References:

[2]Philip Buckingham, Dan Sheldon, ‘The only thing that hasn’t happened yet is a referee getting murdered’ (30, March, 2023)  https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/4360302/2023/03/30/investigation-grassroots-referees-abuse/

[3] Complaint, Jury Demand, and Demand for Production of Documents Neely v. Otero, WL 22956631 (N.J.Super.L. 2022) (Trial Pleading).

[4] Neely v. Otero, WL 22956631

[5] Neely v. Otero, WL 22956631

[6] Neely v. Otero, WL 22956631

[7] Neely v. Otero, WL 22956631

[8] Matthew Stanmyre, Youth baseball umpire won a staggering $650K after coach broke his jaw, (12, June, 2025) https://www.nj.com/news/2025/06/youth-baseball-umpire-left-with-broken-jaw-after-violent-attack-awarded-record-650k.html

[9] Chris Sheridan, What Are People Betting On Legally? Follow The Bouncing Pingpong Ball (13, April 2020) https://www.thelines.com/which-sports-can-you-bet-on/

[10] Ryan S. Bostik, Rigged or Random? How Angry Bettors, Game Fixing, and Controversy Affect the Integrity of the Sports World (May, 2025) (Marketing Undergraduate Honors Theses, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville) (on file with ScholarWorks@UARK, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville).

[12] Christopher Maloney, FORGIVE THE REF: How Revenge Science Can Save Youth Sports 4 (2025)

[13] James Kimmel Jr., The Science of Revenge (2025)

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