AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) – During this basketball season we have seen incidents of misbehavior taking place at the games. A few of the incidents that took place this season were the game between Dalhart and River Road, Lorenzo and Crosbyton and the game that took place at Tascosa High School on Jan. 6.

Jimmy Lackey, Kids Inc. president and CEO said parents tend to get emotional in these situations because they want to protect their children. But they need to remind themselves that other children and people are also involved.

“My simple answer to it is there no reason for it. There is absolutely no reason for it. Beyond that, you are dealing with folks in the heat of the moment that you know probably if they were to stop and count to ten that might do something a little different,” Lackey said. “But they don’t and once it happens you can’t take it back.”

Lackey said with Kids Inc the main focus is the children that are playing and enjoying the game. He talked about the protocol that officials with Kids Inc take when incidents do arise.

“Our director programs meets weekly with all our officials during seasons. And they talk about situations that happened the previous weekend. What do you in this situation, how would you handle this. But the protocol if someone is getting out of line, we have a parent that is getting chippy,” lackey added. “Our protocol is that we go straight to the coach. Coach you need to handle this parent, coach you need to handle your player number 10, coach you need to chill out on your side of the deal.”

Brad Thiessen, AISD athletic director said the incidents that are currently happening at basketball games are usually rare. He added that from what he has witnessed the altercations that are taking place at the games are a flare-up between the students and the situation continues to build up from that.

“There are many coaches, administrators, we have security guards. There are a lot of people to stop the altercation as quickly as we can. It’s not the role of the parent to come across, because when the parents come across, we don’t know what their intentions are,” Thiessen said.

Thiessen added that UIL has guidelines in place for the players, and any player that is involved in an altercation will get an automatic one-game suspension.

“Anybody that comes on the floor, rather it be another student or a parent. That parent will probably forfeit their right to come to the ball games for the rest of the year. Students will be handled with discipline just like any other student will be,” Thiessen said.