Adults in youth sports need to be adults

Or else what?

Looks like Estancia just found out.

Friday night was the sound of a hammer dropping, as the New Mexico Activities Association dealt a huge penalty to the boy’s basketball team, along with the entire school and the community of about 1,600 people less than an hour from Albuquerque.

Three fans were ejected during the Bears’ District 6-2A home tournament game, a 67-66 loss in triple overtime.

Had that happened at one of our area schools, I can assure you the athletic director would receive a stern warning from the NMAA, which governs high school sports and other activities.

The problem for Estancia was that it already received that stern warning in February.

Now comes the punishment. No matter where the Bears are seeded in the 16-team Class 2A field they won’t get a home game.

That’s not all. Wherever the Bears do go for their first-round game, their fans aren’t allowed inside.

It was, as longtime Albuquerque Journal sports writer James Yodice said on his Twitter, “Wowza.”

At first I wondered, “How can you possibly enforce that?” NMAA Executive Director Sally Marquez told Yodice Estancia administrators would work with the NMAA to see no Bears fan gains entrance. But what if the Bears get seeded against, say, Texico, and an Estancia player’s relative who lives in Clovis decides to go to the game incognito? Does Uncle Joe get interrogated at the front door or the first time he claps for a Bears basket?

A local administrator told me at a school the size of Estancia, everybody knows everybody. That doesn’t eliminate the Uncle Joe example, but we agreed that even if you’re only 90-95 percent effective at blocking a specific fan base, you’ve accomplished what you intended.

This isn’t totally unprecedented, as Espanola Valley fans were denied entry at a regular season football game in October. But this is the first time I’ve seen the removal of a home game the team already earned. The Bears are 21-6, and it was hard to imagine them not getting a top-eight seed when only four other Class 2A teams have more wins.

I haven’t seen anything like what’s been described at Estancia, but I’ve seen fans kicked out over the years. Even if I didn’t agree every time, I felt at least 10 percent of them deserved it. The mother who walked across the sidelines to yell about a travel call deserved it 150 percent.

This situation is like the “Little Shop of Horrors” monster. Refs make mistakes because they’re human. Fans go overboard with their criticism. Refs decide the job’s not worth the hassle. The talent pool is further diluted, and the inexperienced or overworked refs that remain miss more calls.

I commend the NMAA for doing what it can to break the cycle. But fans need to do their part. Never picked up a whistle? Think twice before you yell about “calling it both ways” and complaining they’re missing the “over the back” foul.

Youth sports needs adults to be adults. Or else.

Kevin Wilson is editor of The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at:

[email protected]