A Burnsville youth basketball commissioner is recovering after being assaulted in a melee that ended with a parent under arrest and police questioning others who may have been involved.

Jeff Shand, 50, suffered a dislocated jaw, a concussion and dental damage in the attack, which came moments after a sixth-grade tournament game Saturday at Burnsville High School, said Rich Hardegger, assistant commissioner for Burnsville boys' in-house basketball.

Several bystanders tackled the man and held him for police, said Burnsville Sgt. Jef Behnken.

The parent, a 48-year-old Minneapolis resident, was booked on suspicion of fifth-degree assault and impeding a 911 call. He was released pending charges. Burnsville police were also questioning a 15-year-old suspect.

Shand, who visited the dentist Monday, said he has had headaches since the incident. He said tempers sometimes rise on the sidelines, but "you can usually get people aside and let them vent a bit. Then they usually realize, 'What am I doing here?'"

He added that while his program does background checks on coaches, officials and others, "the only people we can't do background checks on are the parents."

Saturday's incident came just after the game ended, when a father of one of the players became upset over the timekeeping of the game. He yelled at the referees and coaches and "said they were cheaters," Behnken said. Shand said the man was angry because a referee started the game while his son's team was slow in sending in a substitution.

Shand headed him off before he could get to the referees and told him he was going to call police. He took out his cell phone to call 911.

That's when he was punched and fell. Behnken said the dad hit the commissioner, but Shand said that it was a teen or man in his early 20s who "sucker-punched" him from behind and that the dad had thrown a basketball at him.

A bystander stepped in and also was punched, but he got in a kick to the father's groin and tackled him, Behnken said.

The suspect and his family have been suspended from club activities, said Sam Griffiths, president of the Burnsville Athletic Club.

Saturday's attack is the latest example of what experts say is an increasingly serious problem.

The rise of out-of-control adults on the sidelines of youth sports is "striking," said Bill Doherty, a professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota.

"It's a new phenomenon," he said. "This did not occur on this kind of scale as far as we know in past decades."

A week earlier, post-game tensions involving coaches at Eastview High School in Apple Valley erupted in a shoving match between players from there and Eden Prairie, and fans joined in.

Two years ago, a St. Paul man went to jail after a jury convicted him of threatening to shoot his son's Little League baseball coach "like a dog."

Doherty said such parents lack emotional distance and are "hyper-parenting" -- over-identifying with their kids and taking it personally when they believe their child is wronged.

The volatility is not in chess or piano recitals, but in the culture of competitive sports, where parents who spend a lot of money and time lose control "because sports are so, so important" to them, he said.

Griffiths said the kind of violence that broke out Saturday is always a concern.

"It's something that we know can happen, and we always hope it doesn't happen," he said.

He said coaches and officials are trained to try to keep situations calm. But they're also told that "if things get out of hand, the next step is to call 911," he said.

Some parents are unpredictable, however.

"I think many people who start problems didn't come planning to start something," he said. "However, for whatever reason, when it comes to sports, sometimes people get too excited. And due to that excitement, they lose focus of what is logical."

He said the club will consider legal action after officials get a copy of the police report.

The Burnsville Athletic Club is a nonprofit group that offers sports for kids from Burnsville, Savage and parts of Eagan.

"We do a lot of good things for this community and the kids," Shand said. "I really hate to see [the program] get a black eye."

Joy Powell • 952-882-9017 Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482