LaVar’s ejection at Friday’s AAU game is just the latest example on his pathetic path to notoriety.
It will come as a surprise to absolutely no one that the ridiculous LaVar Ball has once again made a fool of himself and a mockery of the values we hope our kids learn from sports.
What did the overbearing basketball father do this time?
Coaching a team of teenage boys at an AAU tournament in Las Vegas Friday morning, he had a female referee replaced mid-game after he was called for a technical, later going on a sexist rant about the woman.
Even with a new male referee brought in, however, Ball earned another technical and was ejected, but, Ball being Ball, he refused to leave. So the new referee decided to end the game right then and there, which Ball’s team was losing, 53-43, declaring the opposing team the winner.
This tournament is run by Adidas, and its organizers told ESPN that it was their decision to cave to Ball’s immature demands and replace the referee.
More Ball:
What an awful message they sent to the boys playing on that court. Instead of standing up to the bully, who was threatening to pull his team off the court (as usual) , they spinelessly acceded to his sexist wishes.
And what did the organizers get for their trouble?
Ball threw another fit later on and the game was called early anyway.
Adidas organizers, you just got played.
After the game, spotting people with their phones ready to videotape him, Ball launched into a despicable tirade against the woman who was doing her job refereeing youth sports.
“She’s got a vendetta because she’s a woman that is trying to break into the refereeing thing, but giving techs and calling fouls, that’s no way to do it, ” he said.
There was more:
“She ain’ t ready for this… She ain’ t good enough. She ain’ t got enough on her resume. I can tell.”
He also uttered a sentence anyone who has followed Ball’s pathetic path to notoriety had to know was coming.
“She needs to stay in her lane because she ain’t ready for this.”
There it was. There was his signature line, telling yet another woman to “stay in her lane.”
Back in May, during a televised conversation about Ball’s line of $495 sneakers, Fox Sports’ Kristine Leahy asked him a perfectly reasonable question:
How many pairs of those shoes have been sold?
Ball’s reply to a sports announcer who happened to be a woman?
“Stay in your lane.”
I think he meant to say, “Very few.”
Soon, Ball was tweeting that he was selling T-shirts with the slogan: “Stay in yo lane.”
This should be unacceptable behavior for any person in this country in 2017. (I know, I know.) It certainly should be unacceptable for a company like Adidas, which, by the way, is trying to sell shoes to millions of female athletes too.
But, for another day, the basketball world, led by Adidas, let a man who represents the worst of their sport get away with whatever he wants to get away with. Shame on them.
Follow USA TODAY Sports’ Chrstine Brennan on Twitter @CBrennansports
