[Back In The Saddle]

First of all, the higher up the ladder an official goes, the more he or she is scrutinized, evaluated and assessed. The folks who work major college basketball get evaluated constantly.

You are obviously unhappy with the "quality" of the officiating in the PAC-10. You assume, or so it seems from the nature of your questions, that the officials are some gang of loose cannons with their own agenda. Considering the amount of money involved, hundreds of millions of dollars per year, what on earth makes you think that the PAC-10 would hire ANY official that isn't willing to do what the conference wants? Do you think their supervisor of officials is some milktoast figurehead, with no actual power or ability to affect how games are officiated? Do you believe the conference deliberately chose such a person? Do you believe the schools involved would allow such a situation to exist?

Hell no! The officials who work in the PAC-10 worked their tails off to get there. The supervisor of officials has literally hundreds of thousands of officials he could choose from. He chooses only those that he feels can do the job. He keeps only those that actually do. If you do not like the way the game is played in the PAC-10, don't stupidly assume that it's the renegade officials who are screwing it up. These are some of the best in the world, and they don't get there or stay there without calling the game the way the league wants it called.

Question for you, BTTB. What color is the cover of the NCAA rulebook this year? Do you know? Have you even seen it? Have you ever read it? It's available online, you really should go get it and read the entire thing. Let me give you a challenge: look up the rules on over-the-back and reaching in. Come back here and lets discuss them.

Most fans know very little about the rules of the game, even the articulate ones. What's worse, they don't even realize it. I'll let you in on a little secret, TV and radio commentators don't know much about the actual rules either. They get paid to look and sound good and get good ratings. If you're turning to them for your rules knowledge, you are getting nothing more than entertainment mixed with dubious information. Worse, most fans don't even care. They don't want to know. They want to the game to be the way they want it to be and their eyes get all glazed over when you tell them what the rule really says.

They get their ignorant thrills yelling "three seconds" anytime they see an opponent in the lane. The times I hear this the loudest are the times when the fans are most wrong about it. They don't know whole rule. They get angry, upset even livid and they are just flat out wrong. Just a hint, you can't have three seconds during a throw-in, when the ball is in back court, or during rebounding.

The ones who have advanced beyond three seconds usually jump on the traveling bandwagon next. Whenever an opponent does anything that looks unusual, an ignorant chorus of "traveling" erupts from the bleachers. And they are usually wrong. The three seconds rule is simple compared to the traveling rule. Just a hint, there is no "two step" rule, you cannot travel without having control, and a skilled, athletic player can quicly make an awful lot of movement without traveling.

The mere concept of advantage/disadvantage is entirely too much for most fans. A foul is defined as illegal contact that puts an opponent at a disadvantage or gains a player an illegal advantage. It's ALL about advantage/disadvantage. If it doesn't matter to the game (not the same as mattering to a fan), the officials should let it go. If a player can reasonably be expected to play through the contact without being disadvanted, the official should let it go. Oh, and notice the statement about illegal contact, there is a lot of contact that IS legal. You can even have severe contact that is completely legal.

And don't get me started on the "call it both ways" ignoramouses. You fans absolutely don't want it called both ways. You want it called your way. Only. All the time. And that, my dear friend BTTB, is the heart of the problem. The officials don't give a rats *** about you or your team. They don't care what you think, feel or believe. Not even a little bit. They can't. Because if they did, they would be biased.

You seem dismayed that your attempts at civil dialogue about why the PAC-10 officials are terrible have met with unfriendly response. It's because those of us who have put in the time and effort to understand how to officiate the game readily recognize your complete ignorance. It is obvious. It's like a flashing neon sign. You're here for one reason and one reason only: to find support for your opinions. That's completely disingenuine. Oh, I suppose that you may actually have some kind of pipe dream about changing our minds about how the game should be called. Well, that's more of an acid trip, really.

So if you truly want to engage in a dialogue with us on the subject, you've got one of two choices: You can put aside your bias, admit your ignorance (to yourself most of all), and attempt to learn what it's really about from folks who have collectively devoted thousands of years of study and practice (that would be the folks here). Or, better yet, seek out your local officials association, don the stripes, learn the rules, pass the test and gain the experience. I guarantee you that if you'll do that, you will change your ignorant tune.