Being the halftime honoree at a college basketball game evidently doesn't give someone the right to heckle a referee. George Washington professor Robert Kasmir learned that the hard way over the weekend during the Colonials regular-season finale againstDayton.
The part-time professor was ejected from the game for verbally confronting a ref from his courtside seat after a foul call. Minutes earlier, Kasmir and his family had been honored at halftime for donating between $10,000 and $24,999 to the university.
"Basically, I told the ref he was the worst ref I'd ever seen and he wasn't worth the $1,600 dollars they were paying him and that was it," Kasmir said. "And then he ejected me from the game."
As the clip shows, Kasmir wasn't too embarrassed about his removal.
You gotta love the guy holding the baby who gives Kasmir a high-five as he walks off the court. Assuming the ref actually makes $1,600 per game (this article confirms that such a figure is reasonable), he can take a little crowing from the peanut gallery.
For his part, Kasmir isn't upset with GW and plans to keep making donations. The school isn't upset with him either.
Senior vice provost Robert Chernark defended Kasmir in remarks to the school newspaper, The Hatchet. "He did get a bigger ovation when he was thrown out than when he was on the court for his donation," Chernak said. "Actually we started to play better afterwards, so maybe we need to make it a fan a game or something."
So what kind of professor is Kasmir? His refusal to capitulate to an authority figure made me think he was in the political science department. The deft verbal skills he showed in criticizing the ref then had me leaning linguistics. But then he triumphantly walked off the court, arms in the air, to the cheers of fans. Surely a man who knows how to win the adoration of the masses is in some sort of psychology or sociology department.
Nope, none of the above. He's an accountant. Probably not a bad guy to have on your side when the IRS comes barking.
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