{"id":10979,"date":"2015-09-12T02:24:18","date_gmt":"2015-09-12T02:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=10979"},"modified":"2015-09-12T02:24:18","modified_gmt":"2015-09-12T02:24:18","slug":"this-refs-story-becomes-bigger-than-the-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=10979","title":{"rendered":"This ref&#8217;s story becomes bigger than the game"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/referee-powerpoint-slide-template-for-microsoft-powerpoint-21668881.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-10980\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/referee-powerpoint-slide-template-for-microsoft-powerpoint-21668881-300x225.png\" alt=\"referee-powerpoint-slide-template-for-microsoft-powerpoint-21668881\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/referee-powerpoint-slide-template-for-microsoft-powerpoint-21668881-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/referee-powerpoint-slide-template-for-microsoft-powerpoint-21668881.png 550w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Robert Watts no doubt doesn&#8217;t want to be remembered this way.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s out of his hands now.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s the high school football referee who was pummeled late in a game the other evening by two San Antonio Jay High School players. They blindsided him with a hit in the backfield late in a game against Marble Falls.<\/p>\n<p>Watts says he&#8217;s going to press charges against the players, who&#8217;ve been suspended from school. What&#8217;s more, an assistant Jay HS coach, Mack Breed, also has been suspended.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newschannel10.com\/story\/29995073\/conduct-of-coaches-questioned-in-texas-referee-incident\">Coach&#8217;s conduct in question<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Indeed, the focus now is turning to the coach.<\/p>\n<p>Did he encourage the young men to hit the official? Did he actually give them permission to do this deed?<\/p>\n<p>If the answer is yes to either, then the coach needs to face charge of conspiring to commit assault and battery.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been reported that Watts reportedly made some bad calls on the field that went against Jay &#8230; and that he allegedly uttered a racial slur in the direction of one, or maybe both, of the players who hit him from behind.<\/p>\n<p>Suppose he did make some bad calls. And let&#8217;s suppose further that he said something offensive to the players. Is that how they should respond? By hitting a ref &#8212; while wearing body armor &#8212;\u00a0so hard as to potentially inflict permanent injury?<\/p>\n<p>The University Interscholastic League, which governs high school extracurricular activities in Texas, needs to spare no effort in finding out what happened on that field.<\/p>\n<p>That the young men would do such a thing by itself is inexcusable. They must not play football again in Texas.<\/p>\n<p>The coach&#8217;s actions also require a thorough investigation.<\/p>\n<p>To say this kind of conduct is inexcusable doesn&#8217;t do justice to what these young men did.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robert Watts no doubt doesn&#8217;t want to be remembered this way. It&#8217;s out of his hands now. He&#8217;s the high school football referee who was pummeled late in a game the other evening by two San Antonio Jay High School players. They blindsided him with a hit in the backfield late in a game against &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=10979\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">This ref&#8217;s story becomes bigger than the game<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,17,18],"tags":[5464,4997],"class_list":["post-10979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-news","category-sports-news","category-state-news","tag-football-refs","tag-uil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10981,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10979\/revisions\/10981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}