View Single Post
  #17 (permalink)  
Old Sun Feb 10, 2002, 12:26am
Mark T. DeNucci, Sr. Mark T. DeNucci, Sr. is offline
Administrator
 
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: Toledo, Ohio, U.S.A.
Posts: 8,048
Quote:
Originally posted by Larks
Quote:
Originally posted by Bart Tyson
Sorry JR. but i disagree with you about HS coaches knowing who are good officials. Every state that has coaches input as proof that coaches don't have a clue. Just so i don't make a blanket statement, If you take 100 coaches, maybe 3 or 4 might be able to distinguish between a bad and good official, using officiating standards. Now having said this, Perception is everything, if a coach THINKS you are a bad official then in his eyes you ARE a bad official.
In Ohio, Ive heard of guys getting tourney votes who are retired or dead! Nice job coaches...way to take it serious! But its the system. I know guys who are good refs...worked their way into Varsity....even do college games so they are more than qualified.....but comes time for the HS tourney votes...they dont get them while the most political guys do. I guess I better start politicin if I advance!

Larks is correct. Two years ago, an official who was retired and had moved to Florida recieved notice that he was receiving tournament assignments. Ohio and Michigan are two of the worst states when it comes to having coaches pick officials. I am a native of NE Ohio and returned to NW Ohio (my wife is a native of Toledo) in 1984 after having lived in California, and I am still referred to by athletic directors and coachs as the official from Los Angeles.

I am a college graduate (engineer) and high school coaches are all college graduates and school teachers, meaning we are all professionals, but they are the most unprofessional group of people I know. I know that I am painting with a broad (very broad) brush here, but I am trying to make a point. The vast majority of coaches do not have a clue about the rules of the game.

A very good analogy is my own profession. I am a civil engineer by major. Civil engineering is divided into three main categories: environmental/sanitation/water, highway/transportation, and structural (that is me). We all take basic civil engineering classes in all of the three major areas, but then we specialize. A civil engineer who spcecializes in enviromental knows the basics about structural engineering but is not qualified to do structural engineering anymore that I am qualified to do environmental engineering. Furthermore and environmental engineer would always defer to a structural engineeer's knowledge as a structural engineer would to an environmental engineer's.

Basketball coaches know that traveling, over-and-back, double dribble, and fouls are all not allowed in the game, but they do not have the expert knowledge on what theses things really are. Basketball officials know about pick and rolls, going backdoor, trapping, zone, and man-to-man defenses but we are not the experts in these areas. And yet coaches will flat out tell an official that the official is completely ignorant of the rule and black ball that official when the official is 100% correct. But if an official were to stop the game and chew a coach's tuckus for making a stupid coaching move, they would have no qualms about telling that official that he does not know what he is talking about.

Until coaches realize that their job is to coach and only coach, and that they have absolutely no say so in the officiating, the game will never be in good health. There are way to many coaches that are just not professional enough to trust officials to do our job. And as long as states like Ohio and Michigan let coaches have a say in the officiating, the officiating will always be suspect. This is not to say that there are not good officials in these states, but it is difficult for officials to do the job that they are hired to do. Coaches want officials to be professional but when we do our job correctly they blow a gasket.

Sorry about this venting. You would not believe that I had a fun game this afternoon would you.
__________________
Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.
Trumbull Co. (Warren, Ohio) Bkb. Off. Assn.
Wood Co. (Bowling Green, Ohio) Bkb. Off. Assn.
Ohio Assn. of Basketball Officials
International Assn. of Approved Bkb. Officials
Ohio High School Athletic Association
Toledo, Ohio
Reply With Quote