Soccer Punk Kills Ref

Ricardo Portillo 

So much of what we hear and read on "the news" is slanted, you don't know what to believe. Reporters have become COMMENTators. Well, I have a story for you to digest. It has facts and is heavily laced with my own comments and opinions - this is not a newscast, it's a blog!

The story begins one week ago, April 27, 2013 at Eisenhower Junior High School in Taylorville, Utah.

46 year old Ricardo Portillo was officiating a soccer match in a local recreational league. During the game, Portillo saw a goal tender push an opposing player. Apparently, this is an infraction, so the goalie received a "yellow card" warning from Portillo. The 17 year old goalkeeper, playing in his first league game, became enraged and suckerpunched the ref. Portillo had been recording the "pushing incident" in his notebook and he probably never saw the punch. After falling to the ground and vomiting blood, Portillo was taken to Intermountain Medical Center where he entered a coma and died last night.

The 17 year old is being held in a juvenile facility and will probably be formally charged during the week.

Sad story. It never should have happened.

The jock mentality is the main reason why I am no longer an avid sports fan. Athletic guys with super abilities look at themselves as special people. They are not. When they commit an infraction, they deny it, instead of taking their penalty as a man.

What are we teaching our kids? Along with teaching our kids how to play the game, we should also be teaching them how to react to mistakes, how to respect authority, and how to react to winning and losing. A sporting event should never be the "end of the world" for the player nor, as in this case, for the official.

Until we make the sporting world perfect, I say fry the punk. Give us his name and make him the poster child for what will never be tolerated on any level of athletic competition.

This was a preventable tragedy. Shame on us, athlete-worshiping sheep.

That's all, goodnight.