Coming Full Circle

[Umpire in Chief]

I'm always as hesitant as possible to criticize an official from any sport, especially at the lower levels.

 

My daughter had played rec volleyball here for 5 years and we've always had pretty good officials. I've disagreed with them on judgement calls, but also realize that's officiating and they are there to make those judgement calls. I'll even go as far to say these parks & rec are better than the middle school level officials I've seen. In both I've seen blatant rules mis-applications.

 

Now my son (8 y/o) has started playing basketball. And this is his first attempt at any sport. He actually has had zero interest in any sport but came home with the basketball sign up form and was excited and wanted to play so we signed him up. - Quick sidebar to give you better understanding on my son he has Autism that gives him exceptional intelligence, but he rates a zero on social awareness. Think Dr. Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory. When I told him we'd sign him up I went to buy him a basket ball to teach him the basics - He didn't even know how to dribble then and he went to the library and checked out half a dozen books on basketball and "researched" basketball. Now he can tell me everything I ever wanted to know about basketball, but still is far behind other 8 y/o boys in ability. 

 

Saturday was his teams 5th game. They were undefeated going in. We had the first game of the morning and arrived early. When I saw our refs for the game I litter ally said "Oh my look at this guy" to my wife. He was very heavy set, had a scruffy beard which hadn't been trimmed in months, was wearing gray sweatpants, and overall just looked sloppy. 

 

I had judged this guy and it was still 10 minutes until game time. 

 

My father-in-law also made a comment about the guy "We're in for it with this guy as one of our refs." 

 

I should say we use 2 refs and the other was 17 ish y/o and looked average along with most of the other refs.

 

The game started and for the first half our team was shooting at the goal we were sitting behind. The sloppy looking ref was calling the goal we were sitting under. Now you couldn't fill a postage stamp with what I know about basketball officials mechanics, but I'm 99% certain that standing virtually under the goal on your side is not in any mechanics book. I noticed quickly he seemed to be calling a lot of fouls. He was calling them both ways, bit a bit of OOO if you ask me especially at the 8 y/o level. He also made some calls which were absolutely ridiculous. 

 

The most ridiculous call came with 18 seconds left in the game and we were up by 1. The other team took a shot one of their players got the rebound and fell to his butt. One of our kids grabbed the ball too. Then came the whistle. I initially thought it was going to be a jump ball and I was happy because we had the arrow. Well my friend called shooting foul awarding 2 shots to the other team. That was the closest I've ever come to becoming unglued at another official.  How could you say he was fouled taking a shot when he is on his butt and another player also had the ball???? Our coach held it together well and went to the scorers table to protest, but to no avail. 

 

To the other kids credit he made both of his foul shots and we couldn't even get a last second shot off. 

 

Now coming back to the point I was trying to make... Would I have noticed how bad this guy was had he looked the part? I can't even remember ever even noticing the refs before the game unless it was this one guy who worked with my son at summer camp one year. Had this guy "looked the part" would I have noticed or thought he was overly officious? Would I have been more forgiving at some of his earlier calls? Would I have nearly come unglued at the final call? 

 

I doubt it. Of all the officials they use I can now recognize 3. The one who was a counselor at summer camp, one guy who is nearly 7 ft tall (Hard not to notice) and this guy. But the big difference was appearance. I targeted him nearly immediately as a "Smitty" because of the way he looked and it didn't take long for him to prove me right. 

 

As an official of any sport no matter how hard you try you will not get all of your calls right, that comes with the territory. You will not win all the battles with coaches or spectators. Once again that comes when you don the uniform. But win the battles you can win, especially the easy ones like looking the part.

 

 

[mjr_2013]

I was at an intramural middle school basketball game last week. My best friend's little brother is on the team, the court is less than a half mile from my house, and I had nothing better to do, so I figured why not.

 

Obviously I'm not one to judge umpires and referees, but yikes... It was two guys. One is the league director and the other is a 17 year old who actually goes to my school. Coincidentally, I saw him going crazy yelling at a referee the next week in the student section of our HS basketball game, but that's a different story. 

 

There were bad calls throughout, but the last two minutes seemed to be the topping on the cake. It started with a coach accidentally putting seven boys on the court at once.... Yeah, SEVEN... The two didn't catch it for a whole two or three minutes after the parents were screaming "There are 15 people on the court!!!"

 

Then there was a phantom traveling call when the kid, who was right in front of my seat, was clearly just pivoting...

 

Then there came a mad scramble for the ball, an obvious jump ball situation (IDK about the arrow) that the younger ref somehow got a foul out of. I wouldn't judge this, because he was much closer than me, but he didn't make the call until well after the play, when the older ref was about to inbound the ball.

 

Then the clock froze for twenty seconds!! The clock was stuck as they just played on! And instead of blowing the play dead when it wouldn't start, or fixing the time when it finally worked again, the younger ref kept yelling "CLOCK! CLOCK! CLOCK!" at the scoring table, and they just played it as-is!

 

Then a marginal lane violation (in an intramural MS game!!)... My seats were lined up with the free throw line, and I can tell you that the shooter did the EXACT same thing both shots, yet only the second was waved off.

 

And all these of course went against my friends brothers team... With a little more than 14 seconds left (so the clock should have expired), the other team tied it up. The other team won it in OT.

 

It was very strange being in the crowd and hearing a guy a couple seats over yelling "That's two on you ref! Booo!!"... Part of me wanted to tell him to shut his trap (though he was four times my size) and I really felt bad for the ref being on the receiving end of that.

 

I've considered picking up basketball as a winter sport... I'm not into wrestling, i can't skate, and I've never really cared about volleyball... This sure isn't convincing me to join!!

[Jeff C.]

I agree with you UIC about at least looking the part. Pet peeve of mine. Those type of guys make it hard on us that are doing it correctly. I walked out of an 8th grade girls game last year because an MMA fight was breaking out and the refs wouldn't call squat. I also moved from the stands this year because of morons yelling @ the refs. I wanted to say if it's easy, why don't you spend the money on uniforms and the time in clinics and studying and get your butt out there. I know enough about basketball to be dangerous so I can't be too critical of the referees.

[moblue]

I think looking the part definitely plays a role in the respect you gain.  If you look the part then hopefully initial judgments about you will not be negative.  They say not to judge a book by its cover, but when it comes to officials, we all know appearance is part of how we are judged.

[T-Rav]

It is an 8U game, I hope you didn't expect a competent official at these levels. It's hard enough to get good officials at the JV levels.

 

I just finished my first season as a HS basketball referee and it was a challenge but I learned and improved. 

 

If I were you, Warren, I would video tape your daughters game and somehow get it to the officiating crew, I know video really helped and is a definite reality check for officials. I tried to get my games videoed and went to my sisters JV games and tapped them and sent them to the crew working the game, most of them whom I already knew.

[RichMSN]

It is an 8U game, I hope you didn't expect a competent official at these levels. It's hard enough to get good officials at the JV levels.   I just finished my first season as a HS basketball referee and it was a challenge but I learned and improved.    If I were you, Warren, I would video tape your daughters game and somehow get it to the officiating crew, I know video really helped and is a definite reality check for officials. I tried to get my games videoed and went to my sisters JV games and tapped them and sent them to the crew working the game, most of them whom I already knew.

Exactly. I'd rather eat lead based paint than work games like this. I could make some money working these games, but I'd rather stay home. I am doing a morning of youth games later this month. For me, it's a once-a-year thing to pick up a C-note and remind myself why I don't do these. Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

[Richvee]

Interesting. I never officiated hoops but I played all through high school and I know a little about the sport. My son played youth football, basketball, and baseball through middle school and baseball in high school. I've seen good officials, and some bad. Misapplications of baseball rules drove me nuts, but I always tried to keep my cool. (Only once did I have to walk away from a ballfield, but that's a story for a different thread)  By far the worst officiating, and most blatant mistakes came in the youth hoops games. There were more than a few occasions I had to get up and walk out of the gym because I knew if I stuck around any longer I would have been "asked" to leave. No doubt it's a tough sport to officiate. Especially little kids, but, my oh my...the inconsistencies, poor judgment, and poor rules knowledge  I saw in youth basketball drove me batty!!  

[3rdGENump]

I officiated youth, 3rd - 4th grade, basketball while I was in college to earn a little extra money.  I had played basketball as a youth all the way through high school, and knew the basics of the game.  The parents at these games were the worst by far I have ever had to deal with.  This experience taught be a lot about game management.  These games were played in a SMALL gym with the parents sitting in folding chairs along the court, and they made sure you could hear their complaint! 

 

It is bad enough when the parents don't understand the basic concepts of the game, but then the league adds their own rules for the young youth and it makes this worse.  One of the rules they had at this age was the defense could not come out past the three point line.  Talk about causing problems!   For example, team A shoots and misses, team B gets the rebound, team B player tries to dribble and dribbles it off of a player from team A and the ball goes out of bounds.  Parents from team B are yelling and screaming because team A was playing defense outside the 3 point line.  But when in reality the team B player can't dribble and walk at the same time, and it hit off of a player from team A, and team B gets the ball back anyway.

 

After the regular season was done, I got asked to ref the championship game, I should have declined!  We had to stop the game because a dad was at half court yelling at the score table because they gave points to the wrong team... 

 

I only did this for one season and then decided the few $$$ I was making was not worth the hassle.