So you won’t be surprised when I tell you that the only solution to this "problem" is to teach your child to ignore it and play through it. You and he can complain until you’re blue in the face. But all you’ll do is raise your blood pressure and give your son a built-in excuse to fail.

I personally believe that instances of true officiating bias are extremely rare and usually are more the result of a fan’s perceptions than of a ref’s pathological behavior. At worst, they’re the result of incompetence. But incompetence isn’t a sin. You’ve acknowledged that many refs in youth sports are volunteers. Even those that get paid are hardly "professionals," in the sense that they depend on this income for their livelihood.

Does this mean you should sit quietly and watch as an inept – or even dishonest – official takes the game out of the kids’ hands? Well, I know that’s totally unrealistic. I’m guilty of my own emotional outbursts at refs and umps during my kids’ games. So I’m hardly the one to suggest that others seethe in silence.

But the message to your child must always be: "Look, there are things in sports that you just can’t control, and one of them is officiating. If you play a sport long enough, you’ll get your share of both good and bad calls. But you only get one chance to win a game. If you let an official distract you from giving your best, you will lose – and you probably deserve to."

That’s the Old School way, and it’s the only way I know.