Refs sacrifice a lot, love the game a lot.

[Bball Girl]

A reminder that the officials love the game as much (or even more) than we do. I remember once after a very well called game at the USA, we encountered the officials leaving the arena and I stopped them and thanked them for their work...they looked a bit stunned at my thanks (I meant it) and were very gracious. We all gripe about them a lot...but should we walk a mile in their shoes, we might see the game and their work from a very different angle.

http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/10014892


Every call they make during a game is scrutinized. Conferences have observers at games to evaluate referees and get tapes of games. The NCAA also has regional advisers and access to tapes. Officials tape their own games and judge how they did.

A ref has to be good to keep a job.

"They can replay every call you make in every game you do," said Joe DeMayo, a ref for 25 years. "So there's no sense in trying to fool anybody. The tape doesn't lie."

Although some refs try to take the final step up the ladder to the NBA, most stay at the college level, working toward a chance to ref the biggest games.

The best are chosen for conference tournaments. The conferences send rankings of their officials to the NCAA for the national championship tournaments.

Every official remembers the first time he was chosen for the NCAA tournament. The first word arrived in a letter delivered by overnight package.

"It says 'congratulations, you've been selected for the NCAA tournament,"' said DeMayo, who has worked the last 13. "It's everything you work for. When you're on the road and your wife tells you that envelope comes, you know exactly what that means."

It means everything.

[Gator]

There are 3 guys on the court, each with a specific responsibility, and two of them are NOT following the ball.

90% (99+%?) of the fans follow the ball but 95% of them have a firm opinion about a foul away from the ball.

Many fans still think that "over the back" is a foul.

Fans think that if the foul count isn’t even, the refs aren’t playing fair.

Fans react with the heart and hyped emotions. Refs make instant decisions based on a complicated set of rules, even more extensive examples of how to interpret the rules, and years of experience.

There are 3 players clawing for a ball which goes out of bounds on the north end of the court and the ref says it belongs to team A - and team B's fans 150' away at the other end of the court are boooooing because they KNOW it didn't go off THEIR player.

ya, right

IMO:

1) Refs don't get it right all of the time.
2) Fans don't get it right more than 50% of the time except by luck.
3) When fans complain about poor officiating, I've ceased to listen.
;)

[Dale8R]

This should be required reading by all HoopScoopers, in fact, all basketball fans everywhere.

Some of the nicest and best people I have known over the years have been officials. Only a few here and there stood out as having done less than the best they could do.

[TTU79]

I agree Gator and tell my friends who complain to go back and look at a tape. Most of the time they're going to find the referee was right and they were wrong. Don't get me wrong, I still get upset at some of the game calling with my pet peeve being inconsistency. Call it the same at both ends of the floor.

[Gator]

I agree Gator and tell my friends who complain to go back and look at a tape. Most of the time they're going to find the referee was right and they were wrong. IF you know the rules;) For example, I just found out this year that it is not a travel if a player picks up her pivot foot - until she puts it down! (I have visions of Susie Q picking up her pivot foot and hooping all over the floor on the other foot and it not being called a travel:) but I'm sure if I knew where to look, I would find a rule interpretation about that too.)

[tx4OU]

And.....
Regardless of how bad the officiating is, please don't throw anything on the court.
:D

[LadyBuff]

And.....

:D

At an NCAA game here in Boulder, I saw the brother of a player get tossed for throwing a drink on to the court. I felt sorry for him, but you cannot throw anything on to the court.

[YCN]

And.....

:D
Thanks for the nice Billy Tubbs reference, tx...

I agree that a lot of the grief that refs take is uncalled for, especially from hecklers. Hecklers should be kicked out and not allowed to return until the next season.

But refs can and do make mistakes, and some of them much more often than others. In the last three years, some of the more obvious errors I've seen were:

A ref who was behind the play called a player contact foul on a defender, when there was no contact. Since I was twice as close to the play as the official, and since I could directly see at least 6 inches of daylight between both players at all times up to the whistle, I knew that foul was wrong. It may have cost the home team the game.

I saw an official call a three point goal on a shot where the shooter's heels were at least 4 inches inside the arc. I saw a call of a two point goal when the shooter's toes were at least 10 inches outside the arc. I saw a player who had established defensive position on the court for at least two seconds, who did not move at all, who was not under the basket or rim, get called for a blocking foul when the dribbler ran into her at full speed and knocked her 10 feet away from the point of contact. I saw a player on a break and in traffic, take four steps before the layup, and the basket was declared to be good.

I hope some people can get the picture.

[Gator]

But refs can and do make mistakes, and some of them much more often than others. In the last three years, some of the more obvious errors I've seen were: ... I hope some people can get the picture.I heard the shutter click! But, IMO, fans make a lot more mistakes about what a call should have been than the ref's do in making calls.

[swok34]

I think heckling and booing the refs is part of atmosphere for the fan, who cares if they are right or not? ;)

I do think when it's all said and done, they usually get it right.

[YCN]

I think heckling and booing the refs is part of atmosphere for the fan, who cares if they are right or not? ;)

I do think when it's all said and done, they usually get it right.
My definition of heckler may differ from yours, swok.

I've been in the crowd when a drunken entity repeatedly and loudly called the ref awful things, using overt obscenity on routine equations. And that person deserved to take the same kind of hike as the people who throw things on the court, create dangerous incitement, or in general violate the most basic fan etiquette of the game.

[vickie1ok]

Oh please. WBB officiating is inconsistent at best. I will be kind and leave it at that. Maybe they "love" the game too much to do their jobs right.

As far as hecklers go, give me a break. Coaches and players get heckled, and we think officials are above that? That is ridiculous. Coaches and players address the media after games and are held accountable for what they do both on and off the court.

Officials are not held accountable for anything they do on the court, much less off the court. Neither officials, their supervisor or the most impotent commisioner in the NCAA, Kevin Weiberg, will even talk to the media about their performance, or lack thereof.

I'm not lumping all offcials in the same bucket of incompetence, but there are more than less. And to be fair, I think it is a lack of leadership.

If an 18 year old kid can be held accountable for what he or she does on the court or off, and have to answer to hostile crowds and media, then I think the officials and old men who supervise officials and the league should do so as well.

[swok34]

Probably NOT a good idea to throw your cell phone :eek: :D
From yesterday's OU/Texas Men's game here in Norman:

•Can you hear me now? Angered by a foul called on Godbold with 5:03 left in the game, a fan hurled a cell phone onto the floor, flying over the players' heads and hitting near mid-court.

It was not apparent if OU officials discovered who threw the phone.

[vickie1ok]

No one has bothered to answer my question as to why officials should not be held accountable like coaches and players are?

Hello? Anyone out there?

[sybarite]

It would take an extradition treaty for me as the governor to release some referees from the state after some of the games that I have seen.

I think the incompetent officiating is indication that there is no longer any organized crime in charge of gambling. Otherwise, I think there would be some broken legs.

[Bball Girl]

No one has bothered to answer my question as to why officials should not be held accountable like coaches and players are?

Hello? Anyone out there?

How are they NOT accountable.

Conferences have observers at games to evaluate referees and get tapes of games. The NCAA also has regional advisers and access to tapes. Officials tape their own games and judge how they did.

Coaches can send tapes to the conference and ask for reviews. I know our coaches do that.

How many coaches watch tapes of themselves coaching and critque themselves?

Maybe the fault lies with us...maybe we don't understand the rules and maybe we expect the calls to go for our teams and therefore we critique the officials too harshly. As a wise person I know would say..."there are 3 sides to every story, yours, mine and the truth". We're too close to these games to see the truth, we see our side and that's about it.

[vickie1ok]

No, you are missing the point entirely. You are assuming officials almost never make mistakes and when we as fans see a bad call because we have replay, the officials should not have to answer to it.

Yes, we will see things differently on close calls based upon our school affiliation. But there are flagrantly bad calls or no calls. And also, trends in calls.

Let me give you an example that does not involve my team. One of the worst things about WBB officiating is when there is a scrum for the ball, they wait until a player from both teams touch the ball and then call a tie up. The fact is they either don't have the cajones or the competence to call a foul when it really is a foul. A case in point: In last year's Big 12 tourney, Claire Coggins got knocked to the floor (I dont' even remember who they were playing), there was no foul called and in the ensuing scrum they called a tie ball after Coggins hit her head on the floor. She could have suffered a head injury because these officials can't call a foul before these ladies have to wrestle on the floor for the ball. If they keep this up, one of these days someone will get seriously hurt, and I will pony up several hundred dollars to sue on behalf of that player.

WBB officials are so very far behind the game they have control over. And they are so inconsistent. I have seen many games this year, in the Big 12 and out, where the officials aren't even consistent between one half and the other.

At the very least, coaches ask for consistency.

And I stand by my comment about officials and Big 12 administrators not being held accountable. Yes, coaches and AD's can issue a complaint silently to the Big 12 office. But it never does any good. (except for Bobby Knight, who can throw f-bombs at Big 12 news conferences with no consequence).

But they will not answer questions before the media. Coaches and 18 year old kids do. And so do AD's and University Presidents. If they do such a good job, than they should answer questions about their job performance. I don't even know who the men and women's supervisor of officials are. When we were in the Big 8, the supervisor of officials would frequently do interviews with local radio stations. That is non-existent in the Big 12.

I don't have that protection in my job, do you?

[Gator]

...Claire Coggins got knocked to the floor (I dont' even remember who they were playing), there was no foul called ...

Winding up on the floor does not necessarily mean there was a foul.

And I stand by my comment about officials and Big 12 administrators not being held accountable.I think they are held accountable but not publicly accountable and I agree with you, they should be held publicly accountable. So what if person X is responsible for reviewing officials performance. Is person X any good at that job? Etc.

Personally, I would LOVE to see refs do the same thing Coale does (and I assume other coaches do). On her TV show, she will show a couple of plays, stopping action and explaining what is going on and why. If those coaches or SOMEBODY (invite a ref to appear? :p ) would do the same for officiating (run some plays and explain why there was a no call or... etc.) there would be a lot less dissatisfaction.

[swok34]

There have been a couple of cases this season where the ref's have been suspended a game for making a bad call.

[KStateProfessor]

I completely agree with vickie1ok that the refs should be accountable. Unfortunately, the Big 12 Conference does everything it can possibly do to prevent this from happening. You would think the Big 12 Conference would post a listing of the names of the officials, their qualifications for achieving this high level of officiating, the state they are from, and the university(ies) they attended.

Does anyone know if there is policy to prevent a referee who is a graduate of Texas, for example, from being assigned to work a Texas game? As a fan, I certainly hope that the Big 12 makes sure that such conflicts of interests do not happen. However, since there is no accountability, the fans will never know. Based on what I have read on other boards, the officials for Big 12 games do not actually work for the Big 12 Conference. Instead, the Big 12 hires a private contractor to supply the officials. It would be interesting for a reporter to do an investigative report about Big 12 Conference officiating.

[tx4OU]

Michelle where are you? I hope you read this thread.

[dem]

Does Big XII practice differ in any significant way from that of other conferences?

[KStateProfessor]

Here is the link for a listing of Big 12 Conference Staff:

http://www.big12sports.com/aboutbig12/staff.html

A Coordinator of Football Officials is listed, but there is no listing for a Supervisor of Officials or any similar position for men's and women's bball. I think this is because the officiating is delegated to an outside, private contractor. I do not know if this is standard practice. As pointed out previously by vickie1ok, the Big 12 does not put out any information about basketball officials. From what I have read on other boards, some conferences also use a private contractor for officiating whereas others employ their own officials. In my opinion, the fans have a right to know how this is handled.

[vickie1ok]

Gator, you obviously didn't see the game I was talking about with Coggins. Perhaps Jimi or other Kstate fans can fill you in. It was a foul, she was pushed or tripped by the opposing player to the floor. It was not intentional, very few fouls are.

My point was, the foul should have been called then. Instead, the offcials did what they usually do and let players scrum around on the floor until one from each team touches the ball at the same time and they call a tie-up. It was during the scrum and tie-up, she fell back and hit her head very hard on the floor. If the foul had been called to begin with, she would not have banged her head on the floor.

Am I the only person who is tired of the scrums on the floor leading to a tie up because the officials can't make a call to begin with? I'm not saying all scrums are a result of a foul to begin with, but it is ridiculous in WBB.

Part of the problem, which has been mentioned before, is officials will cover one game one night and another the next. Besides the fact the Big 12 needs to improve the level of officiating to somewhat resemble the level of the players and coaches of the Big 12, I also think the WBCA needs to focus on the recruitment and training of more officials for the women's game.

I know it won't happen overnight, but if fans just pick daisies instead of applying pressure to the powers who have the ability to improve the situation, then we will not see improvement. And the game suffers as a result. I want to see the players be the stars of the game, not the officials.

[KStateProfessor]

Vickie1ok, you are right again. I am a K-State fan, and I saw the play you are talking about. However, it was soooooo much like the way these type of plays are called (yes, they are scrums) that I didn't think too much about it at the time. The refs should have called an obvious foul, but instead they do nothing and wait for the tie-up.

We definitely need an improvement in the quality of officiating if women's bball is to improve to the level that the women are capable of playing. The improvement will never happen unless the fans put pressure on the Big 12 Conference to make improvement in the quality of officiating.

[swok34]

The Big XII Women's BB Coordinator of Officials is Becky Marshall and has been since 1998.

A large part of the problem is that there are not enough officials. That was the key thing I think Brenda V pointed out to us at the Hoopscoop Meeting in KC. And that's why so many of them have to work 2 or 3 games (or more) a week.

The better officials are rewarded in the conference tournaments, when 12 teams become 2, you better believe that the 3 officials on the court are the best 3 to have come through the tournament.

The same thing is true of the NCAA's.

[MsProudSooner]

Does anyone know if there is policy to prevent a referee who is a graduate of Texas, for example, from being assigned to work a Texas game?

There is no policy such as this. Britney Brown's father is a football official. When she signed at OU, he told the Big XII he wasn't going to call OU games any more, but there was no rule to prevent it.

On another note, whenever I find myself infuriated by the officials, I try to remember some officials who used to officiate my daughter's elementary school games. We were fortunate to have some high school officials who would work our elementary and middle school games, so they knew what they were doing. They were truly nice guys and after a few games the kids got to know them and they got to know the kids. It wasn't uncommon at all to find the players and the officials in the coaches office between the girls and boys games. Sometimes, they were showing the kids why a certain call went a certain way. Sometimes they were telling my daughter that they couldn't decide if she was playing defense or going for a takedown! But, they were invariably fair. They were good guys who loved the game, loved being around kids and took their responsibilities seriously.

[Gator]

I wondered how hard it would be to find out more about an official. I took the first Ref of OU converence play: Michael Price. Just using his name was not working but I finally googled "Michael Price" "box score" and got tired after finding the following links - tired because I had to go to the link to get a date and the info didn't seem as interesting without dates. So, for MP:

official this season with OU: vs KS, vs TAM, vs TU, and vs KU

AND 2-17 Cal vs Oregon State, 2-25 BU vs TAM, 1-4 Wash St vs Ariz St, and 2-3 BU v s NU

AND 8-22-06: Storm vs Sparks and the 2003 All Star game

Bottom line: finding anything out about an official is hard work so I give up.

[KStateProfessor]

The Big XII Women's BB Coordinator of Officials is Becky Marshall and has been since 1998.

swok34, thank you for the information about Becky Marshall. I did a web search using her name and found that she is part of the "crew" for Excel Sports Officiating. Here is the website:

https://www.eofficials.com/controlpages/ESOCrew/crewbio.aspx?CrewID=41

The website says that she is the "coordinator of women’s basketball officials for the Big XII, Sun Belt, and Southland 2000 conferences" and that she played basketball at the University of Texas, Austin. This probably means that this firm is the private contractor for officials for Big 12 women's basketball.

[Scamp]

Celtics broadcaster to offer on-air apology for sexist remark

BOSTON --Boston Celtics radio analyst Cedric Maxwell will offer an on-air apology during Wednesday night's game for saying that a female referee should "go back to the kitchen" after he disagreed with one of her calls, a station official said.

Maxwell made his comments during the Celtics 77-72 win over the Houston Rockets on Monday night's broadcast on WEEI-AM, which is owned by Entercom Communications.

He subsequently said "Go in there and make me some bacon and eggs, would you?" in reference to referee Violet Palmer.

"Cedric's comments about Violet Palmer were a poor attempt at humor, and we don't condone what he said," Jason Wolfe, Entercom's vice president of AM programming and operations in Boston, said in a statement. "Cedric will apologize on air during (Wednesday) night's Celtics broadcast."

Entercom owns WEEI and WRKO-AM. Celtics games are usually broadcast on WRKO, but Monday night's game was on WEEI. Wednesday night's game is also scheduled to air on WEEI.

Maxwell is a former Celtics player and the MVP of the 1981 finals, won by Boston 4-2 over the Rockets. The team retired his number in 2003. ...

http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/articles/2007/02/28/celtics_broadcaster_to_offer_on_air_apology_for_se xist_remark/Violet Palmer used to referee Pac-10 games. She did just as good a job as any of the male officials.

[vickie1ok]

Thanks, KStateProfessor. I know what I saw, and I saw it with neutral eyes. And you recognized the bigger point I made about scrums where officials won't call fouls when they happen but wait until a tie-up occurs.

Very, very interesting about your research on the "Big 12" coordinator of officials. I just won't even comment about that now.

And, SW, I agree that we don't have enough officials for the women's game. That's why I made the comment that the WBCA needs to recruit and train more officials for the women's game. They need to focus on issues like this moreso than males scrimmaging with women's teams!

[Gator]

Gator, you obviously didn't see the game I was talking about with Coggins. Perhaps Jimi or other Kstate fans can fill you in. It was a foul, she was pushed or tripped by the opposing player to the floor. It was not intentional, very few fouls are. You are right - I didn't see the game and wasn't commenting on a specific play. I was just trying to make the point that players can hit the floor or even be hurt, sometimes badly, without there being a foul involved. It sure is counterintuitive, but it happens all of the time. From the "most misunderstood" calls/nocalls list:

"The mere fact that contact occurs does not constitute a foul. Incidental contact is contact with an opponent which is permitted and does not constitute a foul. Contact, which occurs unintentionally in an effort by an opponent to reach a loose ball, or contact which may result when opponents are in equally favorable positions to perform normal defensive or offensive moves, should not be considered illegal, even though the contact may be severe. Contact which does not hinder an opponent from participating in normal defensive or offensive movements should be considered incidental."

The way I read that is that players in a "scrum", who are most often all trying to get a loose ball, can have a lot of "contact" with none of it being a foul. It is a judgment call and sometimes the ref's judgment is wrong - sometimes it is right. My point simply is that you can't call a foul "just" because there is a scrum.

Which also gets to the point about there not being enough "good" officials - ie, officials with enough experience to make a heck of a lot more good judgment calls than questionable ones. No official is ever going to get them all right and no set of officials is ever going to see everything which does not excuse the egrious errors. Twice this season we know of officials (football and basketball) being punished for those errors and I hope that keeps happening!

[KStateProfessor]

The way I read that is that players in a "scrum", who are most often all trying to get a loose ball, can have a lot of "contact" with none of it being a foul. It is a judgment call and sometimes the ref's judgment is wrong - sometimes it is right. My point simply is that you can't call a foul "just" because there is a scrum.

Gator, thanks for your useful quotation of the rules. However, what happened on this particular play was that Claire Coggins was pushed to the floor by an opposing player. Then, the scrum occurred. The contact in question was not part of the scrum. A foul should have been called on the initial contact.

Unfortunately, this is the type of play that happens so often in Big 12 women's basketball. A player pushes or trips an opposing player to the floor, and then a scrum occurs. Occasionally, the push or trip could be unintentional. However, in most cases, the contact is intentional in an attempt to start a scrum. Players know they can get away with this because the refs almost never call the initial contact that occurs before the scrum a foul. Instead, they wait for the scrum with much more additional contact, and then call a jump ball. This is the type of play that vickie1ok was talking about. If the refs were doing their job, the initial foul should be called.

In my opinion, a couple of teams in the Big 12 are especially adept at initiating scrums. Perhaps, because they have been coached to do this.

[dem]

Bill Fennelly recently said that he thinks most coaches would prefer a pretty quick call on the initial contact, one way or the other, to prevent the scrums from developing as they have--which is to say: too much.

[DBLTFarmer]

The officiating in the womens game does not even come close to the mens game in the big 12. As Vickie stated, the officiating is not consistant and seems to be getting worse each year.

I started making an observation which really turned into a small study. About 10 games into conference play, I watched 8 mens games and 8 womens games. Of these games none involved Texas Tech. During the games I watched calls being made by officials. I watched where the official was located and where the the infraction or play ocurred. In the womens games, I saw 10 times more calls made than in the mens games where I would consider the official out of position. For example, officials at the top of the key make a foul call underneath the basket or make an out of bounds call. In the mens game, the officials were much more likely to make the call in their specific area and to let their coworkers make the calls in their area.

Another observation in the womens game is that there is usually one offical that makes a higher number of calls than the other two officials. Out of 8 games I watched, one official had a majority of the calls(average of 46%) while the other two officials averaged around 226 or 27 % of the calls each. The high of the games had one official making 62 percent of the calls while the other two officials made around 19 percent each.

In the mens games, the averages were 36%, 34%, and 30%. The high game had one official making 44 percent of the calls while the others averaged around 28 percent.

I know this is not a scientific study and could be easily refuted but it still looks a little funny to me. There should not be these kind of discrepancies between the mens game and womens games.

I have officiated games myself and it is no easy task at any level. This is the Big 12. We should expect and demand better and more consistant officiating.

[Gator]

Gator, thanks for your useful quotation of the rules. It was not a quote of the rules but a quote from the Officials forum where a bunch of refs were trying to come up with a "list" of most misunderstood rules or application of rules. There were a lot of comments and I made a copy of the whole list in an attempt to try and better understand this game and how it should be officiated. :)

I agree - a foul which causes a scrum should be called.

Note: based on what I see in the Official's forum, many men do not want to officiate women's games at the high school and below level. I get the impression that they consider the coaching and level of play to be inferior and consider it a "higher calling" to aim for the men's games. I would love to know how big the pool is for D1 women's vs men's officials. I would also love to know why there is a different pool for officials for men's and women's games and for that matter, why a conference needs a men's AND women's coordinator of officials. At a minimum, wouldn't it be interesting if the two pools were "judged" by the same standards? The counter argument I have heard is that women refs would not get as many games if they had to compete in a mixed pool. But because all of this takes place behind closed doors, we can only guess at some of the answers.

[vickie1ok]

I don't give a rat's rear whether men or women officiate WBB. I just want competent people. Again, I think the WBCA should focus on the recruitment and training of more officials. And I will add, they and/or the conferences, should also focus on training existing officials.

For goodness sakes, it would give more jobs to people and give more training to new and veteran crews. What's wrong with that?