Quote:
Originally posted by mcrowder
You keep not answering the question...
Why, in your opinion, when two officials disagree on what they saw, should we immediatly and uniformly default to the one of those two that threw a flag, and the one that saw the same action, but NOT see a foul or throw a flag, must defer to the judgement of the other... in other words, why do we assume, in such cases, that the one throwing a flag was RIGHT in his judgement call, and completely dismiss the other official's judgement call (for certainly it was judgement that caused him to NOT throw a flag)?
I've posted my opinion on why we do this, but you've not, and I'm curious to hear if your reasoning mirrors mine or supplements it.
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Trusting your partner is one of the most important things you can do when officiating your game. It is that simple. I do not throw flags personally when I think I am wrong. I do not throw flags if I am unsure. Now I had to learn to do that over some time, but if I am confident in a call, if I did not feel confident I would not throw the flag. Of course we can have a disagreement, but I was getting it right in my mind when I threw the flag or blew the whistle. I work in 3 sports and my point of view rings true in all of them. It is not my job to tell my partner he screwed up every time I disagree. If he is not doing his job, he will not be there. If an assignor has a problem with my crew or an individual on the crew, he will inform the crew chief and we will have to make a decision. If I want to nitpick a call that is what tape is for. Even on tape it can be difficult to really evaluate all judgment calls. But I can see if an official is in position to make a call. I know in a lot of basketball camps, they evaluators will not even make an issue of what judgment an official has, but deal with "things to think about and to look for." We will go round and round if every call is up for debate and discussion. You might say that will not happen, but are you sure it will not happen if we advocate a discussion on judgment calls? I have never said you can never debate a call, but to just say you have a different opinion is not a very good reason. Maybe if there was another player that knocked him into the defensive player and the contact was not just based on an attempted block, I can easily see a discussion or a debate about the call. But you do not go to a person that did not see the call. A Referee should not entertain that kind of discussion when all he is given is an opinion. The non-calling official needs to get to the calling official and talk it out. If the calling official agrees, then when they get to the Referee he can be told to pick it up. I have a rule on my crew. When there are more than one flag, I want to hear why everyone threw a flag. I do not signal until I hear for both officials. I also tell my crew to make sure when they have flags; they discuss it with each other to see if there are any differences. When they get to me, the decision needs to be made. I am not there to debate the call; I am there to make a decision. And that decision is not my decision, it is their decision. This is all pregamed and we have already decided what kind of situations requires a discussion. If this guy was on my crew, this would not be one of them.
After all is said and done, this is just an opinion. If you feel it helps your crew and the perception of the crew to debate judgment calls, which of course is your right to feel that way. I know many officials you would piss off and cause a lot of conflict if you did what you suggest. This is also not an acceptable practice where I live. There are many officials that cannot find games because they try to do this to officials that have been working a long time. If you think using a pea whistle is a better than using a Fox 40, who am I to stop you. I will say this, there is a reason some get to the top and many stay at the bottom. You can be right and be very wrong at the same time.
Peace