CHUCK Martin remembers the 6-foot-4, 240-pounder lumbering across the court. We need better deterrent
to attacks on refsThe big man had just been ejected after a second technical foul, but he was back on the Kaimuki Recreation Center floor and closing in on Martin.
"I backed up and looked down to avoid hitting the scorer's table," he said.
"That's the last thing I can recall before waking up in the emergency room."
What he awoke to was a jaw fractured in three places and 17 stitches.
His mother, visiting from the mainland, sat at his bedside and pleaded with him never to referee another basketball game.
"But I decided I wasn't going to let this guy take away something I love," said the 44-year-old Martin, who sometimes referees his four young children in Kalanianaole Athletic Club basketball.
"I decided I'd be back on the court as soon as I could hold a whistle in my mouth."
Medical insurance paid only a small portion of Martin's hospital bill and he lost several days at his job as an Iolani School mathematics and physical education teacher.
The assailant, who was playing in an adult recreation league, was arrested and later sentenced to 30 days of jail time. It was a sentence he was allowed to serve on weekends.
A year after the sucker punch, Martin made a controversial call at a state basketball tournament game between Kamehameha and Moanalua at Kekuhaupio Gym. The call went against Moanalua and Kamehameha won the game.
As he was walking off the court toward the refs' dressing room, a fan flew out of the Moanalua section with his fist clenched and Martin alertly ducked as the man swung for his head. With the help of Kamehameha personnel, Martin and his fellow officials were hustled into the room and the door was locked as the would-be assailant pounded on it and cussed.
"I felt sorry for the Moanalua girls," said Martin, who has more guts than should be necessary for the task of officiating. "But I had to make a call."
Martin still refs recreation league, youth and high school games. But he occasionally feels a chill pass through his body.
"There are times when people are screaming and I look into the stands to see who it is. I can't help it."
I don't know about you, but I find this incredible. The man is an arbiter for basketball games.
He's not awarding custody of the Kuwaiti oil fields or someone's only child. He's deciding who gets the blasted ball.
Yet he has been brutally assaulted by a "player" and has constant premonitions of the same thing happening again.
Martin is not the only sports official ever to be attacked or threatened in these islands. It happens at various levels of organized sports activity, and there are more instances than we'll ever know about.
Other well-known instances include the attack on referee Jim Beavers after a Waipahu-Waianae football game several years ago at Aloha Stadium and the assault on a Kauai umpire by a Waianae prep baseball assistant coach a few years ago.
Eleven states have enacted laws that make it a crime to attack a game official.
North Carolina, which seems to have the toughest law, will put you away for two years if you do what the sucker-puncher did to Chuck Martin.
Four other states have legislation of this sort pending, and Hawaii is one of them.
It doesn't cost a bloody cent to enact this proposal. Let's do it.