While rules like no noisemakers or laser pointers in gyms remains the same, the Texas Association of Sports Officials has strengthened the rules for unruly fans, school personnel and inhospitable playing venues.
After reviewing incident reports from 2022‑2023, the Texas Association of Sports Officials All‑Sports Board of Directors was very concerned with the number of incidents of excessive verbal abuse that occurred from school personnel and others associated with the school including other coaches, not involved in the game/match, game administrators, athletic directors, superintendents, and school board members. Ultimately, if a school does not address the problem sufficiently, a school could be without officials for all its sports events. The details are below.
To address this concern, the board voted to revise the 2023‑2024 abuse of officials policy by adding Section 1 B to hold school administrators and others affiliated with the school even more accountable for their actions.
SECTION 1
The TASO Staff will review every incident report (IR) submitted.
At any point during a school year, if in any and all sports, an individual school receives:
(A) three (3) submitted incident reports, indicating excessive verbal abuse and/or physical abuse, including threats of physical abuse, directed toward the officials by any combination of players, coaches (of that game/match), or spectators:
OR
(B) one (1) submitted incident report, indicating excessive verbal abuse and/or physical abuse, including threats of physical abuse, directed towards the officials, by a game administrator, coach (not coaching in the game/match), athletic director, superintendent, school board member or other school employee:
If the criteria of either paragraph A or paragraph B are met, then the IRs will be presented to the TASO Presidents Council, consisting of the presidents of the baseball, basketball, football, soccer, softball, volleyball and water polo divisions to review the incident reports.
If a majority of the Presidents Council deems that the IRs demonstrate a culture of failing to control the players, coaches, staff, or spectators by the school:
- The Chair of the Presidents Council will notify the TASO Executive Director, or his/her designee, of the Council’s determination.
- The TASO Executive Director or his/her designee will notify the school’s athletic director and/or superintendent requesting that the school respond with a detailed plan to control the unruly conduct of their players, coaches, or spectators within seven (7) days from the date of the notice
3. The Presidents Council will review the school’s response and determine:
If the school’s plan will adequately address the issues, the TASO Executive Director or his/her designee will so advise the school and continue to monitor for additional IRs.- If the schools plan is not sufficient to control the unruly behavior or the school fails to respond, the TASO Executive Director, or his/her designee, will so advise the school and include recommended revisions.
4. For schools that ignore or fail to effectively address their negative culture of abuse, a notification will be sent indicating that effective on a certain date there will be no TASO officials, in any sport, assigned to home games for that school until the issues are satisfactorily addressed.
SECTION 2
To avoid unjustified Incident Reports filed by our members:
- TASO will monitor the number and type of incident reports filed by our members.
- If a member submits an excessive number of unjustified reports, TASO will review all reports filed by the member.
- If it is determined the member has filed a number of unjustified incident reports, he/she will receive additional training on filing incident reports, and may be subject to disciplinary action.
