Twice each week I strive to bring you insights, or at least musings, on the political situation in our state and nation. But if my regular reader (hi Jeff!) will excuse it, today I’d like to talk with you about a more personal story, and we’ll see if it ever connects back to Colorado politics.

For the past eight years, I’ve had the pleasure of working as a football official, refereeing games from littler kids in the fifth grade all the way up to the biggest high school’s varsity programs. I’ve always been a football fan and working as an official gave me an up-close look at the game I love. When I started out, with a few exceptions, the players, coaches and parents were all part of an overall pleasant way to spend afternoons and Friday nights in the fall. And even though Colorado ranks near the very bottom nationally in terms of what officials are paid, I felt honored to be on the fields of friendly strife.

Yet this past October I made the decision to walk away from officiating, even as I had been named as one of the candidates to work this year’s state championship games. I’ve worked postseason playoff games before, but this year was the first year I was being looked at to work the big game, so to speak. But I had had enough, and I told my supervisors that I would finish out the games to which I had been assigned but wouldn’t accept any more, including the playoffs.

This year, I couldn’t take it anymore.

The relentless abuse heaped upon me, and my fellow officials, became more than I was willing to take. So, who is the problem? There are three sets of folks who are at fault: the players, the coaches and the parents.

Now, even in my early years in stripes there were occasional problems. I had a coach who claimed we were throwing the game for the other team.

Of the three groups mentioned, the players were by far the least difficult group of people to work with. Over my eight years, I can recall only a handful of times when a player lost his or her poise and got mouthy. Ironically, in my very last game, I did have one kid actually say “so, do you actually get paid to make these calls?” He thought he was being witty, and I chose to think of that as a teachable moment rather than a flag, and he was soon quite apologetic when he understood the implications of his remark. And coaches are mostly not too bad, although certain schools have a “culture” of disrespect regarding officials.

That leaves us with one group of offenders left…

Ultimately it was the parents that this year convinced me it was time for me to step aside.

I was regularly stunned by what some parents were willing to yell from the stands, in front of their own kids, about a high school football game. Oh, and spoiler: the officials really and truly don’t care one-bit which school wins and which school loses. Yet many parents think that we do, and that somehow it is their job to scream at us from the stands.

An example from one of my last junior-varsity games may illustrate the point. A dad sitting on the visitor’s side of the field decided we were corrupt or incompetent or maybe just evil and he began screaming vile things from the stands. Again, in front of the players, other parents, coaches, and more. He finally started yelling at the top of his lungs, over and over, one phrase that I cannot put in this column, but which resembles “F* you, refs!”  With that, we had him removed from the stadium, shouting as he left.

After that game, we waited for a bit to go to our cars until the school cop could escort us. Apparently there had been threats, sigh. Or I could tell you about the game wherein two dads screamed threats of kicking our asses after the game.

As I discussed my “retirement” with my fellow officials, we all agreed that in recent years things have become much worse. There is a national crisis in officiating, as more and more are deciding to walk away from the field and the court. People seem willing to scream things that only a decade ago would have resulted in them being shunned by their fellow parents and admonished by the school. Heck, even coaches are quitting at record rates because of parental behavior.

I do not see this rise in incivility as rooted in sports.

Rather, I see a nation where over recent years, national leaders have granted absolution to the spouting of vile and violent ravings. We are a nation in which views that used to be confined to dark corners (e.g, white supremacy) have been accepted in the mainstream.

And of course, you know where I am going with this: a former president who thought it was just fine to mock women’s appearance and to brag about sexual assault. Heck, there is a state rep in Indiana who actually argued that teachers should “be impartial” when teaching about Nazis. Nazis!

I don’t blame every shouted insult at an official on Donald Trump, but I do see, over recent years, his leadership in a willingness to step away from graciousness and respect, and that’s a darn shame.

There are many things about officiating that I will miss, but there are far too many other things that I will not. Just as our nation has become less civil, sports parents and the national electorate must decide the way forward.

Shall we be courteous, or shall we be vile?

I sincerely hope we make the right call.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.