Code of Conduct

Newtown Youth Basketball Association

Code of Conduct

Adopted by the Board of Directors on ____________________, 2026

Replaces the Code of Conduct dated November 4, 2024

Article 1. Purpose

NYBA is run by volunteers, plays in gyms it borrows, and depends on officials and scorekeepers who are often teenagers. Those three facts shape everything in this Code.

This Code exists to do four things:

1. State plainly what NYBA expects of the adults and children in its programs.
2. Protect children from abuse, and from adults who lose control of themselves.
3. Protect the officials, scorekeepers, and volunteers NYBA depends on and cannot easily replace.
4. Give the Association a consistent, documented way to respond when someone falls short, so outcomes do not depend on who is involved.

This Code is a policy adopted by the Board under Article XIV of the bylaws. Where this Code and the bylaws conflict, the bylaws control.

Article 2. Who and Where This Applies

Covered persons. Players. Parents and legal guardians. Other family members and guests attending NYBA activities. Coaches, assistant coaches, and team volunteers. Division Coordinators. Board members. Officials, scorekeepers, and monitors working NYBA games.

Where and when. Anywhere NYBA activity takes place: practices, games, tryouts, evaluations, drafts, clinics, team events, and travel to and from them. Home and away. NYBA facilities and those of other organizations. Regular season, league, tournament, and postseason play.

Communications. Team and program communications in any medium, including email, text, group messaging apps, the registration platform, and social media, when the communication concerns NYBA, its programs, its participants, or its volunteers.

Guests. A parent or guardian who registers a player is responsible for the conduct of everyone they bring to an NYBA activity, including other adults, siblings, and extended family. A guest’s conduct is treated as the registering family’s conduct under this Code.

Words used in this Code

• Program Function holder. The board member responsible for a program under Article V of the bylaws: Travel, Biddy, Boys Rec, Girls Rec, Boys Senior League, or Girls Senior League. In plain terms, the person who runs your child’s program.
• Division Coordinator. A volunteer who helps a Program Function holder run a division. Not a board member unless separately confirmed to the Board.
• Cleared adult. An adult who has completed NYBA’s background screening.
• Official. A referee, scorekeeper, or monitor working an NYBA game.
• Event. For suspension purposes, a scheduled game. A one event suspension means the next scheduled game for that team.
• Captain. A Senior League player who helps run a team.
• Personal technical. A technical foul charged to someone for their own unsportsmanlike conduct.
• Sideline technical. A technical foul charged to a head coach because of the conduct of that team’s spectators rather than the coach’s own conduct. It is a sideline technical only where the officials identify it as one.

Article 3. How This Code Works

The standard. Behave in a way that would not embarrass NYBA if it were recorded and shown to the town. That is the plain version. The Articles that follow say what it means in the situations where NYBA has actually had trouble.

Discipline rests on the specifics, not the slogan. No one is disciplined under this Code except for conduct described in Articles 4 through 8, or in the Athlete Safety Policy. The standard above explains the purpose of those Articles. It is not itself a basis for discipline.

The Athlete Safety Policy. NYBA’s rules on screening, contact, communication with players, and reporting suspected abuse are set out in a separate Athlete Safety Policy, adopted under this Code and reviewed on the same schedule. It is part of this Code for every purpose. A violation of it is handled under Tier E.

Where to look. 

If you are a

Start with

Parent, guardian, or family member

Articles 5 and 11, and Article 10 if you are ever asked to leave a gym

Coach or team volunteer

The Athlete Safety Policy, then Articles 4, 9, and 10

Player

Article 6

Official, scorekeeper, or monitor

Articles 7 and 9

Board member or Function holder

All of it, the Athlete Safety Policy, and Article 8 in particular

Consequences. Some consequences are automatic and follow from the game itself. Everything else falls into one of five tiers, A through E, set out in Article 12. Fair process and appeals are in Article 13.

Article 4. Coaches, Assistant Coaches, and Division Coordinators

NYBA could not run a season without volunteer coaches, and most of them are parents of a player on the team. This is the longest Article in the Code because a coach shapes a child’s season more than anyone else in the building, not because coaches are presumed to be a problem.

4.1 Language. No profanity at any NYBA activity. Not at a player, not at an official, not at another coach, not at yourself, not under your breath. This applies at practice as much as at games, and it applies to your own child.

4.2 Treatment of players. Correct the play, not the child. Yelling at a player, sarcasm, name calling, mocking, visible disgust, and public criticism of an individual child are not coaching. Nothing here prevents a coach from being demanding, competitive, or direct.

4.3 Your own child. A coach whose child is on the team is in a position that invites suspicion, fairly or not. In recreation, where playing time is equal, the question is role rather than minutes: who starts, who handles the ball, who is on the floor at the end of a close game. In travel and Senior League it is minutes as well. Either way, your child gets nothing a neutral coach would not give the same player. And on request from the Division Coordinator or Program Function holder, you account for how the team was used in the games in question. That request is not an accusation. It is how the question gets answered.

4.4 Playing time. In recreation, playing time is equal. That is a rule, not a coaching decision, and a coach does not trade it away for a better result. Travel and Senior League follow the published minimums for those programs. A coach who intends to hold a player below what they are due, for a disciplinary reason, follows the notice procedure in the Rules first, before the game, not after.

4.5 Score management. When a recreation team leads by twenty points or more: stop pressing, drop into a half court defense, and stop running offense for your best scorers. Playing time is already equal, so the lever here is how you play, not who is on the floor. Running up a score on nine year olds is a conduct violation, not a coaching philosophy. In travel and Senior League, and in league play under another organization’s rules, the standard is simpler. A coach does not encourage a team to humiliate an opponent.

4.6 Officials. Only the head coach addresses an official, only during a dead ball or timeout, and only in a normal speaking voice. A coach does not argue a judgment call, does not address an official from across the court, and does not comment on officiating to players or spectators. Concerns about officiating go afterward, in writing, to the Officials Function.

4.7 Other coaches. A confrontation with an opposing coach is handled by the officials, the Division Coordinator, or the Program Function holder, not by the coach. Intimidating, threatening, or abusive language toward another coach, at any volume, is a Tier C violation at minimum.

4.8 Your bench and your spectators. A coach is responsible for the conduct of their players and their team’s spectators. Where an official warns you about your sideline, address it. Where it continues, the officials may charge a sideline technical to you. That technical is not treated as your own misconduct and does not count toward your removal under Section 12.1. What is expected of you is that you act when asked, not that you control every adult in the building.

4.9 Evaluations, drafts, and team formation. Coaches participate honestly. Withholding what you know about a player’s ability, misrepresenting an evaluation, arranging picks with another coach, or otherwise manipulating team formation to stack a roster is a Tier C violation, and any pick obtained that way may be voided by the Program Function holder.

4.10 Before the season. Every coach acknowledges this Code before the first practice, and reviews the parent and player expectations with their families at the start of the season.

Article 5. Parents, Guardians, and Spectators

5.1 Cheer, do not coach. Encouragement is welcome and loud is fine. Instruction is not. A child listening to a parent in the bleachers is not listening to the coach.

5.2 Officials. Do not comment on officiating, and do not address an official during a game. Concerns go to the Officials Function afterward. Bear in mind who you are talking to: nearly all NYBA scorekeepers are teenagers, and in the youngest divisions the referees are high school students as well. They will make mistakes. That is part of how they learn, and it is not an invitation to comment.

5.3 Your child, and other people’s children. Do not correct, criticize, or call out any child during a game, including your own. Do not speak to another family’s child about their play at all.

5.4 The 24 hour rule. Concerns about position, strategy, or a coaching decision are not raised before, during, or immediately after a game. Wait until the next day, then contact the coach. This does not apply to anything involving a child’s safety, injury, or wellbeing, which is raised immediately. In recreation, playing time is equal by rule, so a concern that it was not is a rule question rather than a coaching decision. Raise it with the Program Function holder.

5.5 Where to sit. Stay in the bleachers or designated seating. Do not stand along the sidelines or baselines, behind a basket, or near a team bench.

5.6 Facilities. NYBA borrows every gym it uses. Treat school and Parks and Recreation property accordingly, follow facility rules on food, drink, and footwear, and leave the space clean.

5.7 Away games and other organizations. NYBA families represent Newtown at away games and tournaments. If a coach, parent, or official from another organization behaves abusively, do not respond in kind and do not handle it yourself. Report it to the coach or Program Function holder, who reports it to the Association and, where applicable, to the league. NYBA will pursue it. Retaliating in the moment removes the Association’s ability to do so.

5.8 Raising a concern is never a violation. A parent who repeatedly and persistently raises a good faith concern through the process in Article 11 is using the process correctly. That is not a violation of this Code, and no part of this Code may be cited against them for doing it.

Article 6. Players

Play by the rules. Listen to your coach and to the officials. Shake hands afterward and mean it.

• No taunting, trash talk, or retaliation, whatever the other team is doing.
• No profanity.
• Pick up a teammate having a bad game, because you will have one.
• Treat the gym and the equipment as though they belong to someone else, because they do.
• A player in a physical confrontation is removed from the game by the coach and sits the next one.

If an adult at an NYBA activity makes you uncomfortable, tell a parent, a coach, or any board member. You will not get in trouble for it.

Article 7. Officials, Scorekeepers, and Monitors

Arrive on time and ready. Enforce the rules consistently regardless of score, crowd, or which team you know. Do not argue with coaches or spectators; use the tools the playing rules give you. Do not work a game involving a family member without telling the Officials Function first.

What you are asked to report. Record technical fouls and ejections in the scorebook, as the playing rules already require, and provide a short written account of an ejection or a serious incident. That is the whole of it. Officials are not asked to document sideline conduct, classify anything under this Code, or decide what discipline follows.

What you are not asked to do. You do not manage adults out of a building, decide whether someone may keep coaching, or resolve a complaint. Those belong to NYBA under Articles 10 and 11.

Paid officials. Officials working NYBA games are covered by this Code. Where a paid official falls short of it, the ordinary remedy is how the Officials Function assigns and retains officials, rather than the tiers in Article 12.

Article 8. Board Members and Function Holders

Everything in this Code applies to you, and more visibly. In addition:

• Act on conduct you witness rather than waiting for a complaint. A board member who ignores conduct they witnessed has violated this Code.
• Document decisions in writing.
• Disclose conflicts and recuse under Article IX of the bylaws.
• Do not discuss a pending disciplinary matter outside the process.
• Do not use a program you run to advantage your own child, your own team, or a coach you are close to.

Article 9. Authority on Game Day

Two authorities operate at an NYBA game. The officials own the contest. NYBA owns the event. Nearly every problem in the past has come from confusing the two.

9.1 The officials own the contest. The game officials have final authority over the contest: the playing rules, fouls, technical fouls, whether a participant is ejected from the game, and whether play continues, is suspended, or is terminated. No coach, Division Coordinator, Function holder, board member, or Executive Officer may overrule an official’s decision, direct an official how to rule, or reverse a call. Judgment calls are not subject to protest or review by anyone. NYBA’s remedy for weak officiating is in how it recruits, trains, evaluates, and assigns officials. It is never in the middle of a game.

9.2 NYBA owns the event. Authority over everything other than the contest rests with NYBA: whether a person may remain in the facility, whether a coach continues to coach, whether a family’s participation continues. Officials have no authority over these questions and are never asked to decide them.

9.3 The NYBA representative on site. For each game, the NYBA representative is the first available of: a Program Function holder or Division Coordinator present who does not have a child playing in that game; the head coach of the immediately preceding or following game at that site; the home team’s head coach. A person is not the representative for a game in which their own child is playing, or in which they are involved or are the subject. Board seniority does not apply and is irrelevant here.

9.4 Duty officer. The Board designates a duty officer for each game day, reachable by phone, whose number is posted at each site and provided to coaches and officials. The duty officer decides any question of removal or continued participation that cannot be resolved on site, and may direct the on-site representative to act. The duty officer does not rule on the contest.

9.5 Coaches and their own sidelines. A head coach is the first line for their own bench and their own team’s spectators, and acts without waiting to be asked. A coach is never the NYBA representative for a matter in which the coach is involved or is the subject. In that case authority passes to the next person under 9.3, or to the duty officer.

9.6 Divisions with no adult official. Where games are officiated entirely by officials under 18, the two head coaches are jointly responsible for spectator conduct, and either may stop the game and call the duty officer. The officials in those games are not expected to manage adults.

Article 10. Removal and Interim Suspension

10.1 Carrying out an ejection. An official may eject anyone from the contest, including a spectator. Carrying it out is NYBA’s job. The NYBA representative delivers that message and, where needed, arranges assistance from facility staff or the Newtown Police. Officials are not asked to escort, argue with, or physically manage anyone.

10.2 Removal is immediate, and it is not a finding. A person directed to leave leaves the facility before play resumes, and play does not restart until they have. A removal is a decision about the rest of that day. It is not a finding that this Code was violated and it is not discipline. What happens next is decided under Article 12.

10.3 When someone will not comply. The officials may suspend or terminate the game. That is the correct outcome and not a failure, and the game is reported and handled under Article 12. Refusing to leave when directed, or returning during a suspension, is a Tier E violation on its own, independent of whatever prompted the original removal.

10.4 Precautionary suspension. Where an allegation involves child safety, violence, threats, or conduct that would fall under Tier D or E, the President may suspend a coach, a volunteer, or a family’s participation immediately, pending review. A precautionary suspension is stated in writing, is not a finding of any violation, and triggers Grievance Committee review under Article X of the bylaws. It lasts no longer than the review takes and is lifted immediately if the review does not sustain the allegation.

10.5 When no NYBA representative is available. The officials manage the contest. Anyone present may call the duty officer. Where neither is available, the home coach documents what happened and reports it within 24 hours. Nothing is negotiated, reversed, or resolved on site, and the absence of an NYBA representative is never a reason to let conduct pass unreported.

Article 11. Raising a Concern

11.1 Suspected abuse. Goes to DCF or the police first, under Section 10 of the Athlete Safety Policy. Not here.

11.2 Everything else. Raise it with the coach first if it is a team matter and it is reasonable to do so. Otherwise, or if that does not resolve it, raise it with the Program Function holder. From there the path is the President, then the Grievance Committee, then the Board, as set out in Article XIII of the bylaws. A complaint about the President goes directly to the Grievance Committee.

11.3 In writing. Complaints escalated past the coach are submitted in writing: what happened, when, and who was involved.

11.4 What a complainant can expect. Acknowledgment that the complaint was received, within a reasonable time. Notice when the matter is closed. NYBA will not always be able to say what discipline was imposed, because the other person has privacy interests too. No one who files a complaint should be left wondering whether anything happened.

11.5 Anonymous concerns. NYBA will accept and consider an anonymous report. It is harder to act on, because the Association cannot ask follow up questions, and it will rarely support discipline on its own.

11.6 No retaliation. No one may retaliate against a person for raising a concern in good faith, taking part in a review, or reporting to DCF or the police. This includes retaliation against a complainant’s child, in playing time, team placement, or treatment. Retaliation is a Tier D violation and is handled separately from the original matter.

11.7 Bad faith complaints. A complaint made knowingly falsely, or to harass, is itself a violation. A complaint that turns out to be mistaken is not.

Article 12. Response and Consequences

12.1 Automatic consequences

These require no meeting, no investigation, and no one’s judgment. They follow from the game itself.

• A technical foul for unsportsmanlike conduct is recorded in the scorebook, and the officials note whether it is personal or sideline.
• Where a team’s spectators continue after the officials have warned the head coach, the officials may charge a sideline technical to that coach.
• Ejection follows the playing rules. Whether a technical is personal or sideline does not change that, because the contest belongs to the officials under Section 9.1.
• An ejection means the person leaves the facility before play resumes and is suspended from that team’s next scheduled game, whether or not anyone reviews it further. This applies to coaches, players, parents, and spectators alike.
• A third personal technical in a season is a one event suspension. A fourth is removal from the coaching or playing role for the remainder of the season, subject to Board review.
• Sideline technicals do not count toward a coach’s suspension or removal. Where the spectator responsible is identified, the sideline technical counts toward escalation for the family that registered the player they are there to watch. Where no one is identified, it is recorded against the team and nothing escalates.
• Where an ejection leaves a team without an approved coach, the Program Function holder assigns a cleared substitute. A team without one does not play.

12.2 The tiers

Everything else falls into one of five tiers.

Tier

What it covers

Range of outcomes

Who decides

Grievance Committee

A

Sideline noise, coaching from the stands, audible frustration, comments on officiating.

The officials warn one or both head coaches, who address their own bench and spectators. Not recorded.

Officials, in the moment.

No

B

Conduct that continues after a Tier A warning. Independent of any game: profanity not directed at a person, arguing with an official, dismissive or demeaning treatment of a player.

A sideline technical charged to the coach where it happens in a game, plus a written warning, active for the season.

Officials for the technical. Program Function holder for the written warning, with notice to the President.

No

C

An ejection reviewed further. Profanity directed at a person. Demeaning or abusive treatment of a player. Intimidating language toward an official, coach, or volunteer. Manipulating evaluations or the draft. Deliberately violating playing time rules.

One to three events, or removal from a role for a defined period.

Program Function holder with the President’s concurrence.

Not required. President may convene.

D

Repeat Tier C. Threats. Discriminatory conduct or slurs. Unwanted physical contact. Retaliation. Any Tier C conduct directed at a person under 18 working the game.

Four events up to the remainder of the season. Removal from a coaching or volunteer role.

Board.

Required before imposition.

E

Violence or assault. Conduct endangering a child. Any violation of the Athlete Safety Policy. Falsifying or evading screening. Conduct while suspended, or refusing to leave when removed.

One or more seasons, or permanent exclusion of an individual or a family.

Board.

Required before imposition.

Where a Tier B written warning follows a sideline technical, it goes to the head coach so there is a record that they were asked to act, and to the registering family of the spectator responsible where that person is identified. Only the family’s warning counts toward escalation.

12.3 Conduct toward anyone under 18 working the game escalates one tier. Conduct that would otherwise be Tier B is Tier C when directed at an official, scorekeeper, or monitor under 18. Tier C becomes Tier D. This will most often apply at the scorer’s table, where the volunteers are young in every division, and in the youngest divisions, where the referees are high school students. NYBA cannot run a season without these volunteers and it loses them to this behavior.

12.4 What is considered. Whether children witnessed it. Whether it was repeated. Whether the person acknowledged it. Any prior record within the last two seasons. Whether the target was a child or a young official.

12.5 A family’s registration. Where a parent’s conduct results in a Tier D or E outcome and the parent will not accept the terms of continued participation, the Board may end the family’s participation, including the player’s. NYBA does this reluctantly, because the child did nothing. It remains available, and no parent should assume a child’s registration insulates them.

12.6 Refunds. Removal for conduct does not entitle anyone to a refund, except as the Association’s refund policy expressly provides.

Article 13. Fair Process and Appeals

13.1 Notice and a chance to respond. Before a Tier C, D, or E outcome is imposed, the person is told in writing what conduct is alleged and given a reasonable opportunity to respond, in writing or in a meeting. A precautionary suspension under Section 10.4 may be imposed first, because its purpose is to hold the situation while that happens.

13.2 Written outcome. Any outcome of Tier B or above is given in writing, stating the conduct found, the tier applied, the outcome and its duration, and the right of appeal. An outcome that is not put in writing is not enforceable and does not count toward escalation.

13.3 Automatic consequences are not double counted. An ejection and the suspension that follows it under Section 12.1 are game administration, not discipline. Where the same conduct is also handled under a tier, the outcome takes account of the games already missed.

13.4 Appeals. Any Tier C, D, or E outcome may be appealed, in writing to the Secretary, within seven days of receiving written notice of the decision. It is heard by an Appeal Committee appointed by the Board: a chair who is not a board member, plus two people with no involvement in the matter and no conflict. The Committee reviews the record, gives the person an opportunity to be heard, and makes a written recommendation to the Board. The Board makes the final decision.

13.5 What cannot be appealed. A removal from a gym under Section 10.2 and a precautionary suspension under Section 10.4 are not appealable, because neither is a finding. The underlying matter is. Officials’ rulings on the contest are never appealable to anyone.

Article 14. Records

Technical fouls and ejections are collected from the scorebooks after each game day by the Officials Function, working with Administration, and logged with the date, the team, the person charged, and whether the technical was personal or sideline. Those two counts are kept separately, because they escalate differently under Section 12.1. This asks nothing of officials beyond what the playing rules already require, other than noting which kind of technical it was.

The Secretary maintains the conduct record: warnings, suspensions, removals, precautionary suspensions, and appeal outcomes, with dates and the basis for each.

Records are kept for three seasons and transfer with the office, not with the person. Access is limited to the President, the Secretary, and the Function holder responsible for the program, plus the Grievance and Appeal Committees for a matter in front of them.

Conduct older than two seasons is not counted toward escalation, but it stays in the record.

Article 15. Tools Available to the Board

For a division or program with recurring conduct problems, the Board may require a preseason parent meeting as a condition of participation, designate a board member or volunteer to be present at games, or run a stretch of games under cheer-only rules where spectators may encourage but not comment. These are program management tools, not discipline.

Article 16. Review and Amendment

The Bylaws and Rules Committee reviews this Code annually and recommends changes to the Board before registration opens. The Board may amend this Code by majority vote at any time, without amending the bylaws.

Article 17. Acknowledgment

Every registering parent or guardian acknowledges this Code during registration. Every coach, assistant coach, Division Coordinator, and board member acknowledges it before serving. Officials acknowledge it before working an NYBA game. Acknowledgment is a condition of participation.

Not acknowledging it exempts no one. Participation in an NYBA activity constitutes agreement to this Code.

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