Iowa State AD Jamie Pollard Kicked Out of High School Basketball Game

Cue this story up in the bizarre section of the news. Iowa State’s athletic director gets thrown out of a boy’s basketball game for arguing a call with an official on Tuesday night. But was the punishment justified for what happened?

Feb 4, 2013; Ames IA, USA; Iowa State Cyclone fans hold up a giant poster of Georges Niang (not pictured) in their game against the Oklahoma Sooners at Hilton Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Reese Strickland-USA TODAY Sports

On Tuesday night, Jamie Pollard attended his son’s basketball game between Gilbert and Colfax-Mingo. Apparently Pollard disagreed with one of the calls, and one of the referees wanted him ejected from the game because of it. From the KCCI report:

"“The official went over to the scorers bench, at that point Mr. Pollard just told the official that he thought it was a bad call,” said Marty Lucas, superintendent at the Colfax-Mingo School District."

Deadspin latched onto this story earlier today. Author Sean Newell spun it as something that made Pollard a “run-of-the-mill crazy parent” even though he “did not use any inappropriate language but he did tell the referee he would have been embarrassed to make a similar call.”

Here’s Marty Tirrell tweeting about the IHSAA possibly reprimanding the official that ejected Pollard.

Deadspin generally likes to be cute and funny with posts like these, but perhaps Newell wanted to make Pollard look bad because it’s Iowa State. If the ref is reprimanded, then an apology should be issued. Disagreements on calls and fans reacting badly in the stands happens EVERYWHERE. Signaling out a person and ejecting him, especially when they don’t use any derogatory or explicit language toward the referee, just makes it all look bad on the ref.

Using it as fuel to bring down the athletic director of a university makes that person look bad as well.

Brian Spaen is the lead editor of Clones Confidential. Get more Cyclones coverage by following us on Twitter.