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Arizona cheerleader gets ejected from game by tough-guy referee for PG-rated heckling
You guys aren't going to believe this, but a college basketball referee decided to flex his big referee muscles on Thursday night during the nationally-televised Arizona vs. Arizona State game. I know, pretty shocking stuff.
Midway through the second half, in a tight 50-47 game the Sun Devils led on their home court, cameras captured Pac-12 official Randy McCall pointing to someone behind the basket that Arizona State guard Remy Martin was shooting free throws at. After pointing whoever it was out, McCall can be heard saying "he's gone", followed by a blowing of his big-bad whistle and a super-tough strut over to the scorer's table to notify everyone that he had just ejected ... wait for it ... one of Arizona's male cheerleaders. Check out a few of the videos:
The reason? According to a report from ESPN's Myron Medcalf, McCall ejected the Arizona cheerleader for heckling Martin and other players during the game with a megaphone. After asking the cheerleader to stop, he apparently went with the ol' PG-rated "not today, Remy." My god, the HORROR.
But, let's give McCall the benefit of the doubt. Did the cheerleader use profanity? Did he specifically call out McCall? Did he use the megaphone as a weapon and attack one of Arizona State's players? Um, none of the above, according to McCall himself.
"He was yelling, using the [megaphone] to call out people by name, which is not acceptable," McCall said, according to the Arizona Republic. "And he was asked to please stop, and he chose not to."
YELLING!? He was YELLING!? At a sold-out college basketball rivalry game? Sounds like a lifetime ban to me. Sure, what the cheerleader did may not be acceptable in the "rulebook", but give me a break here. So he yelled out a few player's names. What's next? No staring in anyone's general direction? This is as weak as it gets.