My phone and Facebook feed blew up at the end of December with national news made in my small eastern Massachusetts town.
At a high school basketball game — apparently angry over a call made minutes earlier — a visiting player sucker-punched a referee.
Friends who were at the game said the 16-year-old assailant cold-cocked the ref with a shot to the face, followed by more punches and attempts to knee the official. They had never seen anything like it.
Sadly, I have seen officials attacked in so many ways that nothing shocks me anymore.