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Here is the thing. Players, parents, fans and coaches get very little respect here. Their views are often clouded. Most on this board will take the side of the officials- and they should it's an officials site primarily.
Many of the non-officials who post on this site are trying to make officials look bad. Or at the least prove that they have more knowledge than the officials working the game.
So please understand it is not personal, especially if we hold suspect your motives.
It is our right to stand up for our fellow officials and at the same time post atl. possibilities of what probably happened in your sit.
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OK. It's been a while since I've posted (or even read many too many posts). I hope the opinions you express are simply your opinions and do not accurately reflect the sentiments of the majority of the users of the board. I am a coach who had a bunch of questions last year and - although I brought a coaches perspective and did not agree with all of the responses I got - I thought there was a very intelligent and respectful dialogue. I know that I learned a lot and I think that at least a couple of officials learned something about a system they weren't familiar with. I hope that, even though it is primarily a board for officials, this kind of respectful dialogue is still possible.
I realize that your job is often a thankless one (thank you all, by the way) and that rabid competitive zeal can easily turn into hostility, but many of us coaches and, I'm sure parents, still feel that we are colleagues in the same pursuit. This is really not simple naivety talking - I coach in the former per-capita murder capital of the country and I'm just way too far past the point where wins and losses are anywhere near the top of the priority list.
Of course you have a right to stand up for fellow officials, but is that what this has really come down to? I would expect you to rally to a fellow official's defense if he/she were being attacked but, otherwise, isn't the purpose of the board about how to best protect the integrity of the game and those who play, coach and watch it? What's the danger in assuming the man asked legitimate question and just answering honestly? Why circle the wagons and parse the hell out of each sentence? I started reading this post because I played a team yesterday that did more swearing then Sam Kinison, and I really wanted to see how different officials thought about the issue.