Minnesota high school captain tells his school's fans: 'We need to stop yelling at the refs'

Noah Bjerke-Wieser sees a need for change and seized a moment this week to ask for some.

His request: "We need to stop yelling at the refs."

Bjerke-Wieser, captain of the La Crescent-Hokah boys basketball team, posted his plea on Facebook after his team's 62-53 victory Tuesday over Fillmore Central. It was the team's first home game of the season, and the only one until Jan. 6.

So there's time to improve, and he's asking for that.

"We all know that there were some controversial calls last night but nothing is going to be perfect," he said in his post. "As a captain of the varsity team I would like to come out and say we need to stop yelling at the refs, us as players, and as spectators in the stands. Nobody will ever call a perfect game and everybody makes mistakes. We all get it is frustrating watching and playing in a game where the officiating is not great. But we need to stop."

His coach, Ryan Thibodeau, was willing to take a lesson himself from Bjerke-Wieser's words.

"I don't believe this was intended at just the people in the stands, as I know I personally can improve, as well as our players when a 50/50 call doesn't go our way," he said. "I think when we experienced frustration on Tuesday night, instead of looking at ourselves and what we can control, we focused on some calls that we didn't agree with."

Thibodeau wasn't surprised Bjerke-Wieser took a stand.

"Noah is an outstanding young man and certainly a leader on our basketball team," he said. "... Noah is very conscious of the decisions he makes, he is very coachable, and he isn't afraid to share any thoughts he has within our team, regardless of how others may challenge his thoughts."

Game officials are in short supply in Minnesota, leading to scheduling complications and to near-daily tweets from the Minnesota State High School for better behavior and for more to take up officiating. Thibodeau said a complication springs from that shortage and from his school's rural location in far southeastern Minnesota.

"A lot of the same officials work a lot of our competitions, across all sports," he said. "This is a tough situation for all involved, officials as well, because we grow to know one another for better or worse."

Bjerke-Wieser asked for more of the better and less of the worse.

"It is hard enough to get officials to ref a varsity game anyway," he said in his post, which as of early Friday afternoon had been liked more than 1,100 times, shared 570 times and commented on 124 times. "It doesn't help when they specifically don't want to ref for a lacrescent game because they know they will be getting yelled at. I personally would appreciate it if we could change the 'lacrescent way' and when refs see lacrescent on the schedule they WANT to ref for us because of how great our team and fan base are.

"As players and spectators we need to let the players play, the officials officiate, and the fans cheer. I know I am not perfect in this too but we need to change. I hope we can all come together as a community and change for the better. Thank you for coming and supporting us but let's support our team in a positive way."