Basketball referee benched for allegedly commenting on girl's hairstyle: 'She is going to have to do something about her hair'
A basketball referee has been benched for reportedly taking issue with a girl’s hairstyle during a game.
According to an exclusive story from WAVY-TV 10, Erica Guerrier was coaching her 10-year-old daughter’s basketball game in Chesapeake, Va., when a referee wanted to talk. “He asked to speak to me and then he mentioned that one of the players, when she goes to the next level, she is going to have to do something about her hair,” Guerrier told WAVY, saying the referee was referring to her daughter’s hairstyle of braids with a blue weave woven in.
“The Chesapeake official came and they had my daughter come over and he pointed to, I guess the point where her natural hair meets the hair that was braided in, and said he didn’t know what that was, and I said that’s her natural hair,” Guerrier told the news outlet. “Just to [get] to the bottom of what are you talking about? There is no such rule, so why are you bringing this up in front of this girl that her only love is just to play basketball?”
A spokesperson from Hampton Roads Basketball Officials Association, the company that contracts the referee, passed along an interview request, but Yahoo Lifestyle has not yet heard back.
“If there were concerns about that young lady’s hair, that’s a conversation you have with a coach and with a player, and in this case as young as this player was, you have the conversation with the parent before the game starts, but not during the game,” Billy Haun, executive director of the Virginia High School League, told the news outlet. “Somewhere private. That’s not something you do on the floor, during the game, before the game or after the game.”
The organization’s commissioner, Rick Ennis, told WAVY that the situation is being investigated and “taken very seriously” and that the referee won’t be working in Chesapeake anytime soon.
Guerrier did not return Yahoo Lifestyle’s request for comment.
Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.
