This opinion article appeared in my school's paper today:
Campus Recreation in need of better-trained referees for intramural sports.
Posted: 02.16.2005
Trevor Behar
It's a never-ending struggle during the life of a referee. He's trained to call it as he sees it -- not making calls favoring one team or the other, being completely unbiased in all ways.
Now, how many people have you met in your lifetime that don't favor at least one side of a conversation, those that don't side with one friend or the other, they remain completely neutral. Sound like a fairy tale? That's probably because it is.
Though there are a few people out there, every single official in a sporting event is not going to be this kind of person. They are going to focus more on one type of penalty or call over another. Some will focus their attention to popular calls they have experience noticing, whereas others may have the guts to go out on a limb.
Regardless of this fact, most officials will end up making calls that are questionable or even dead wrong.
I realized a dilemma last week during one of the men's intramural basketball games held at Carmichael Gymnasium. While the game was going on, it seemed as if the referee was calling a few too many calls on our team compared to the other team. We did lose the game, but I have no room to say the outcome was dependent upon its officiating.
My opinion isn't based on one basketball game but several, including my observations of friends' intramural football games. My argument is with the type officiating going on in these games. In an intramural game things are expected to be less serious -- there shouldn't be a hundred calls per game unless, of course, the teams are playing too rough.
The point of these intramural sports is to encourage teamwork and athleticism to those of us lacking the skills nurtured by Julius Hodge. If we lack the skill and training to reach that level of play, this doesn't mean we still want to play under the same high level of scrutiny.
At a college-level basketball game, everything is expected to be serious, non-biased and 100 percent correct -- granted there are always going to be a few argument-worthy decisions. However, overall, you will usually only end up with one or two bad officials per season.
Officials need to cut a little slack to the intramural teams that are participating just have some fun. For those that go out to the courts every once in a while, pick-up games are one of the most fun ways to play because there are no officials and the rules are left to the discretion of the players. The rules are only taken into account when serious fouls are evident to all. These games are merely as games and should be treated as such.
On the other hand, there are also officials who make few or no calls at all. While I realize we were doing things that deserved penalties in the game, I also realize that quite a few fouls weren't called. Now on this court, there happened to be two officials, and not catching fouls that are left to the judgment of the official is also something that needs to be fixed.
This issue deals with a lack of confidence in the official that usually comes with time and experience. This factor of officiating is still very relevant in the fact that we are playing in a league and a standard needs to be set.
In competition, there always needs to be a middle man capable of making unbiased calls. At the same time, there also needs to be someone in control of players, making sure sports are played safely and players aren't playing in a way that causes harm to others.
The struggle in our intramural sports is that there is no common ground for referees. Some judge too harshly while others don't recognize major fouls. As a whole, intramural sports just aren't any fun when you get called out for every minor detail or when the other team is getting away with fouls.
Both can be fixed with a better training program, one that trains officials to be neither too shy nor too strict. We need trained referees to allow fun games and make the obvious calls, not officials who pick out the tiniest of details or who allow players to be trampled during game play.
It almost seems that Campus Recreation is in such a need for officials that they aren't spending enough time training the officials adequately.
Now on that note I will end my opinions with hope that at least you may take a second notice of the officials next time you're watching an intramural sport. Are they doing a good job, are they making the right calls, are they allowing everyone to have fun and yet still keeping them safe? If you're not seeing what you want, that little office downstairs in Carmichael is the perfect place to speak your opinions about game officials, which just so happens to be one of their responsibilities.
Apparently because we call the games tight, they aren't fun. We should only focus on the "serious" foul, like they do in pickup games in the gym.
I was suprised when I read this...I didn't know howler monkeys could write.
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