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In our 5-10 minute pregames this year, my incompetent referree would state that if we can see their eyes it was ok. As the umpire in each instance I spoke up and said no, they have to go. He would tell me not to do it, that this was his responsibility. I sent them anyway. I repeated every single frickin week that no it wasn't, and I was not going to leave myself open to lawsuits. This culminated 2 weeks ago, in me sending a kid to the sideline...the kid started arguing that I could see his eyes. I told him that was not the rule, he kept arguing. His coach came out and said I owed him an explanation. He was at least 10 yards on the field. I told him he needed to call a time out if he wanted that. At that time the referee came over and started asking what was going on. It quickly became an issue of not showing him or his player respect. The eye shield was never mentioned. Excellent. This culminated last week, in him trying to reverse the only ejection I've called in my high school career. A player after the snamp elbowed another player in the chin. Three plays later from the hashmark I observed a late hit...like 2 seconds after the whistle. The referee immediately started telling me I was officiating out of my "zone". I thought it was my responsibility to observe action around the play. Guess I'm just not part of the team or something.
A question on this. I just spend 2 1/2" months walking out on a field with a man who has no business being on a high school field. My association could care less about the quality of officiating we put out there each Friday and believe me it was an embarassment. At our Monday meeting, I was eaten up over the face shield thing (Defer to the ref, I said no way on equipment issues, it's my responisbility specifically), and then had to point out that personal fouls are the "zone" of everybody. Am I wrong here? Do I defer to a clearly incompetent referee. I can easily say incompetent. We were evaluated 3 times in the last two years and his evaluations were horrible, below 50% type stuff with comments relating to a clear lack of rule knowledge and mechanics. You know, just everything I talked to him about for about the 1st half of the season when I gave up and just kind of rode out the string. I truly believe this guy is on the field because we have overbooked ourselves, and it sucked. I've been officiating high school football for 16 years, and don't want to quit, but I can't take this.
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