CLEVELAND — After years of unsuccessful attempts to pass the Ohio Senate, legislators and sports officials across the state are hoping to see increased penalties if someone assaults a referee.
The bill, currently sponsored by Rep. Joe Miller and Rep. Bill Roemer, has successfully passed the Ohio House three times since first being introduced in 2019. On all three of those instances, it failed to pass in the Ohio Senate, let alone make it to Governor Mike DeWine's desk.
"The first time someone is convicted of an assault on a sports official, it would be a $1,500 fine and it would be 40 hours of community service," State Rep. Bill Roemer explained. "For the second offense, it would be a felony in the fifth degree, the lowest level of felony."
According to the National Association of Sports Officials, 23 other states currently have a similar law on the books.
"Under our bill, you can still say, 'Hey ref — here are my glasses. I think you need them,'" Roemer explained. "That’s OK. But you can’t physically assault."
When it was first introduced in 2019, News 5 covered that bill back in 2019, when it was House Bill 208, then House Bill 44, then House Bill 139 and now House Bill 79 in 2025.
Here's our original report from 2019:
Which sports do we see the most cases of assault?
Just about every referee or sports official News 5 spoke with for this story had an incident they vividly recalled — either dealing directly with being assaulted or fleeing for their safety to avoid being assaulted.
Anecdotally, major leaders in the sports officials industry pointed to soccer and basketball as the two sports with the most cases of assault. Specially, those sports lack natural barriers between fans and officials, such as fencing.
For John Kipp at the Greater Cleveland Soccer Officials Association, his worst encounter was refereeing an adult rec league soccer game at Mohican Park in 1998.
A controversial call during the game escalated to assault afterward.
"The man pulled out a firearm and was 25 feet away from me and pulled it out of his bag and started walking toward me, and I was scared for my life," Kipp said. "My wife does not know this story because I did not want to tell her how dangerous it could be out there."
"It is a social norm that you can go to an arena and act this way and speak this way to officials because there are no consequences for it," NBA referee Simone Jelks said.
Jelks, who grew up in Lyndhurst, has spent the past five seasons officiating the best of the best in front of all sorts of crowds.
But would you believe that the scariest game she said she’s officiated isn’t a pro game, or the NBA's G League or even college?
It was a 5th-grade CYO basketball game.
"After that game, I was chased by grandparents to my car and harassed with a grandchild in their presence," she recalled. "I knew then it’s not safe. My other partner, who I was working with, gave me a taser gun for the next week and told me to keep the taser gun in my bag."
A 2023 survey from the National Association of Sports Officials reported 13% of officials admit to being assaulted by either a fan, coach or player.
"It’s all the way down to 6U or 8U where parents think their son or daughter is going to be in the major leagues, but because that ball was called foul, they’re not going to be able to get their college scholarship now," State Rep. Roemer added.
That has left many with no other alternative than to carry some sort of protection while officiating, whether that's a taser, bear spray or pepper spray.
"If someone gets really stupid, I have some way of fighting back," Kipp said.
Who opposes the bill?
Among those vocally against the bill are prosecutors. Lou Tobin, executive director at the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, told News 5 that the group is not against the need for safety for sports officials, but the class system it creates.
"Our assault statute in Ohio is incredibly convoluted," he said, pointing to the long list of classes of individuals who are protected under the statute. "The concern our association has is it demeans other victims who suffer the same harm."
Right now, there are increased penalties for assaulting a school teacher, bus driver or administrator.
Clay LePard is a special projects reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow him on Twitter @ClayLePard, on Facebook Clay LePard News 5 or email him at Clay.LePard@WEWS.com.
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