Basketball coach arrested for referee assault in Myrtle Beach. Ref speaks
A youth basketball coach was arrested and charged with assault after an altercation with a referee at a Myrtle Beach tournament Saturday evening.
After the incident, the referee is unsure he’ll return to the court.
Jarvis Johnson was arrested and charged with second-degree assault and battery after an alleged disagreement over a call made by referee DJ Barton turned physical. Barton was refereeing a youth basketball tournament at the John T. Rhodes Myrtle Beach Sports Center when the disagreement occurred.
Video footage of the incident shows Johnson shoving Barton after becoming visibly agitated by a series of calls.
Johnson could not be reached for comment.
It was the last game of the day for Barton, who said said Johnson had become aggressive “quickly” after his team had received a foul.
According to the arrest report, Johnson told police he became upset with Barton over calls he’d made in the game. He said he was then given a technical foul and ran up to Barton and pushed him, causing him to hit the ground, the report claims.
When Barton fell, his head hit the ground, causing him to lose consciousness, the report states. Barton said he doesn’t remember much after being shoved. He was taken to the hospital after regaining consciousness. Currently, he is back home in Virginia, recovering from a concussion and neck pain.
Barton told police that he had given Johnson two technical fouls, and was at the referee table stating this when Johnson came over and pushed him to the ground, making him lose consciousness “for a few minutes,” the incident report states.
When he was taken away on a stretcher, Barton said he could hear fans in the stands “yelling at me that I deserved it.”
Barton, 38, began officiating basketball when he was 16. He said that basketball had always been an “escape” from his fraught home life, and he never saw officiating as a job. It was a labor of love.
After Saturday’s events though, he said it “will take a lot” for him to return to the court, if he ever decides to. The incident, he said, “took a toll.”
While angry parents and coaches had “verbally abused” him before, this was the first time someone had put their hands on him.
“Over the last couple years, it has gotten so much worse,” he said of aggression toward officials at youth games.
The event took place about four minutes into a game, according to Mark Beale, the sports center’s general manager. After, Johnson was taken into Myrtle Beach Police custody. Beale said the event company in charge of the tournament eliminated the offending coach’s team.
Beale was not present for the altercation, but said he was later made aware of it.
Beale said that the event company that ran the tournament has barred Johnson from all of their future events. The sports center itself, he explained, does not plan to place an outright ban from the premises on Johnson, but will not allow him to coach at future events held there.
“If you assault a referee, you probably shouldn’t be coaching youth sports,” Beale said.
He noted that altercations between parents, coaches and referees are not uncommon in youth sports. In recent years, Beale said he’s noticed an “uptick” in “over-hyped parents” and coaches who resort to aggressive verbal assaults and gestures.
This was the first physical assault Beale had heard of at the sports center.
After the incident, Barton took to Facebook to share more details of his experience and call for changes in conduct toward sports officials.
This story was originally published July 30, 2025 at 1:33 PM.
