The mistreatment of sports officials is nothing new, but now a young voice is speaking out following a recent incident.
LA CRESCENT, Minn. (WXOW) – The mistreatment of sports officials is nothing new, but now a young voice is speaking out following a recent incident.
Senior Captain Noah Bjerke-Wieser of the La Crescent-Hokah High School boys basketball team took to social media following the Lancers’ first home game of the season. He asked the fans to show more respect to officials after they acted disrespectfully in the December 13 matchup that they won.
After hearing the crowd bicker, Bjerke-Wieser posted on Facebook after the game why he felt the need to show more respect towards referees. The post caught the attention of many and went viral throughout the state. There were close to 2,000 total engagements including likes, shares and comments.
Bjerke-Wieser said officials may avoid Lancer games if fans keep screaming at them the way they did.
“It was super important because there’s a shortage of refs in our area,” Bjerke-Wieser said. “When refs don’t want to come to La Crescent specifically for people yelling at them or not being super nice, it would just make it better if we could all just be super positive to the refs.”
Noah’s coach, Ryan Thibodeau, says everyone can learn about good sportsmanship from his captain.
“Some of it talked about the people in the stands,” Thibodeau said. “Spectators, fans. Obviously as a coach, I read it internally too as ‘how can I be better?’ ‘How can our players be better?’ That this touches everybody. It touches every community. It was a pretty cool overall message.”
Bjerke-Wieser says he one day wants to officiate both basketball and football.
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