Quote:
Originally Posted by BillyMac
Blatant? Yes. Confusing? Yes, maybe so confusing, and so out of the ordinary, that the officials were trying to figure out what was going on, and the ball went out of bounds before the trail could blow his whistle.
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another good point. The problem here is that this is towards the end of the game where he has already jaded a gym full of parents with his incompetent calls and then his ego, this was yet another example of the quality level of this official.
And I really do sympathize with the officials too. I actually officiated when I was in college for Jr and Sr varsity games and tournaments (girls and guys). I completely understand what you're saying and I know I was far from perfect as well. I always tried to be fair and accurate in my calls but know that it can always be a challenge. That's why I always let the officials who know what they're doing know how much I appreciate the job they did at the end of the game (yes even if we lost). It's funny. They look at me surprised that I am shaking their hands and telling them they did a good job.
Another thing here is that after the OB call the ref gave me a technical. I had started walking back to the other end of the bench talking to my bookkeeper and tossed my clipboard to the floor the way I do in every game all game long. I drop it straight down with a little spin so it lands flat next to the end of the bench. I wasn't doing it out of anger or anything, remember this is a church league and we've signed covenants to not argue with the refs or get onto them. I also have 14 sets of eyes on my bench watching me react so have to be careful. Well apparently the ref that it was a slight on him because he heard or saw the clipboard and t'd me up. It took me around 30 seconds to realize who the technical was on because at first he wouldn't tell me. When he finally told me it was because I threw my clipboard I started laughing. I could not believe it. I wasn't looking at him and hadn't said anything to him.
Well then when they were clearing the lane for the technical there was a buzz with the parents who at this point had had enough. Remember this is after a series of non calls and the OB call and now the technical. They started yelling at the ref (already had been telling the ref that he got the OB call wrong). Now I know this is something that every official has had to deal with before as I have had to when I officiated. The crowd gets mad with a call and you just ignore them. Well the ref decided to throw out a parent because the parent was telling him to get the calls right. He wasn't cussing or anything. I ended up walking over to the man with the gym official to escort him out of the building because the ref said he wasn't going to move on until this person was out of the building. It was amazing.
I know this sounds terrible (and it was) but if you were at the game I guarantee that you would understand the situation and how this ref got to the point that with all the bad calls I felt he got personal and with the tech on me and tossing the parent I feel that he let his ego get in the way. Every close call he made he would glance over at me to see if there would be a reaction. I kept having to hold my breath and look the other way as I felt I was on a very short leash and didn't want that second T.
The rest of the way I just encouraged my girls and we actually did pretty well against this team causing a lot of turnovers and scoring well in the fourth quarter to lose by 6. In fact at the end when I had called a timeout and I asked the girls what they wanted to yell out when we do our hands in...1-2-3... they chose to yell out "We Rock". I constantly try to get the girls to ignore the officiating and tell them to just press on regardless of what is caused and they continue to amaze me with their great attitudes.