We need to thank our local sports officials. And stop the abuse.

As a good friend of mine who is also one of the best young basketball officials in Montana pointed out, this Saturday marks the end of National Winter Sports Officials Appreciation Week

This really could not come at a better time here in Montana.  As we talked about last week, another good friend of mine, Shawn Wetzel shared his story of being physically assaulted by a lunatic while officiating a travel league tournament in Anaconda in December.  While this case falls into the "nutcase" category and is still being investigated, it does shed light on the way that many of us treat the men and women, sometimes boys and girls, who give their time to officiate this game that we all love.  Spoiler alert:  We treat them like crap.

I've been a basketball public address announcer long enough to see the Civic Center swap floors.  Twice.  I have had the absolute honor of working with the Butte Central Maroons, Butte High Bulldogs, Montana Tech Orediggers, Butte Daredevils (remember them?), too many district, divisional and state tournaments to remember, the Montana Grizzlies and just about anybody foolish enough to bounce a basketball in front of me.  I have seen coaches and fans at every level, from every part of the state and sometimes country, hurl insults and obscenities at officials that cross the line of disorderly conduct.  I've even been an offender myself.  Why do we do this?

The abuse of officials has been normalized in our society.  We can yell something at an official that if we said at a restaurant would get our entire party thrown out.  Why?  I realize that most coaches are talking to the officials on almost every possession.  Some coaches, though, can sometimes take it too far.  Do fans take their cues from these coaches and if so do we consider limiting coach/official interaction?  Or do we take it the other way and give officials carte blanche to call technical fouls and issue ejections to offenders whether they are on the bench or in the stands?

Physical violence at any level, however, is something that I think we can all agree, crosses a line and can never be accepted or tolerated.

We shouldn't need a week set aside to recognize our officials.  I can truly say that over the literal thousands of games I've announced I've never seen a "screw job".  I've seen some bad calls, of course, but I've never seen outright bias from any official I've worked with.  Even the one in the CBA who gave that Albany Patroon 5 steps when they were playing the Daredevils.  But he was just looking at the dance team.

Let's give our officials the respect they deserve.  And to our local officials, thank you!