[Rizzo21]

Originally Posted by ma_ref

My points exactly.


I agree that's not the reason to call it. You never call a foul because you *expect* an injury to occur, nor are we directly responsible for the actions of the players on the court. My point was that once this person decided not to call it, they have, in fact, potentially put a team in harms way and it was totally avoidable. Imagine what the players on the team trying to foul are thinking: "Hmmm...I just tried to foul the kid, but the ref didn't call anything...maybe I didn't get him enough?" So next time they try to foul again, only this time they do it harder because it didn't get the ref's attention the 1st time. I'm no lawyer, but negligence is not something I'm willing to spend a small fortune to defend myself against. And in today's litigious society, don't think this wouldn't happen.

True, that the "whistle isn't going to heal an injury", but it could very well prevent one. And by consciously ignoring an intentional foul situation, this particular official is creating an atmosphere where they're allowing the potential for very bad things to happen.

Had this scenario earlier this year when Team A was up by about 5 with less than a minute to go and did a VERY good job of "keep away" with their passes. Team B could not catch any of the players for their "foul". Finally A1 caught the ball and just stood there but B1 came in and shoved him into the stands with 1.4 seconds left. Bad scene that luckily didn't escalate (fortunately, A1 was very calm and not hurt). The call was Flagrant Personal on B1 by one of my partners. He's out for the remaining 1.4 seconds and the next game as well. Post-game we lamented the fact that we couldn't get a touch foul earlier but there was NOTHING to get. Things just happen.