All In Favor..... Stay Seated!

Imagine if parents allowed their children to play along the sidelines during a high school football game.  What if elementary age kids could sprint along with the high school athletes during the 100 meter dash or we permit kids to run with the cross country athletes at invitationals?

Of course, no one would allow this to happen, yet parents permit kids to run along the sideline of basketball games just inches away from the athletes on the court and officials who oftentimes are running backwards, sometimes near the sidelines and beyond.

This situation was evident during last weeks games against Palmyra.  I was hoping this was just a one game thing yet it was even worse in the games with Yutan on Thursday evening.

At Louisville basketball games, I usually sit near the northwest corner of the court and have a great view of the north side.  The traffic along the sideline is thick.  Kids seem to have no fear concerning the sideline and think nothing of stepping onto the court to avoid kids running the opposite direction.  Fortunately, we haven't had a collision between players/officials and kids entering the gym or leaving for whatever reason.... yet.

When game officials have to wait for sideline traffic to clear before administering an inbounds play or need to ask children who are already sitting on the floor, slowly stretching out within inches of the sideline markings, to sit in the bleachers, I just want to repeat what a referee asked of the crowd after having to dodge kids while attempting to officiate a game.... "Is there a parent here?"

I'm all for school spirit and appreciate elementary students wishing to support their high school heroes but if the students don't sit with their parents, the parents need to at look after their kids, see where they are sitting and know how many times their child felt it was necessary to leave the gym.  Kids should be instructed by their parents that the only time to leave the gym is during a stop in the action; i.e., time-outs, quarter breaks and half-time.  Other then that, kids should stay seated.

This is the responsibility of the parents to insure the safety of all concerned.  It is not the duty of administrators or faculty to discipline children during a basketball game.

It may be time for Louisville to ban sitting on the first row of the bleachers.  This will widen the concourse for those that really need to leave the gym.  But that's merely an end run around the problem that wouldn't need fixing if the kids simply watched the games.