[bigdogrunnin]

Originally Posted by williebfree

Hello Mr. Hernandez:

I just read your sports blog/commentary online. It appears your attempting to address perceived shortcomings, or a lack of improvement, with three-person officiating crews. Note the gender-free reference, because I have officiated with highly qualified women. Nonetheless, I am thankful that in your commentary you acknowledged the crew of the "featured" game met your standard for officiating. But I have to ask "What criteria do you base your evaluation of officials?"

Let's step back and analyze your claims: "I continue to be dumbfounded by the abundance of no-calls or missed calls by the ones assigned to do Big Eight games and -- thanks to sports reporter Matt Goins of the Verona Press -- I have visual evidence to back up my claim." In your perfect world, the officials would have called the contact in this play. However, if you understand the role of the official you can allow room for judgment of advantage/disadvantage. In this play, the official let the play develop and determined the contact did not create a disadvantage for the shooter. (This concept is known as a "patient whistle") You openly admitted the shooter scored, this does not sound like an egregious error in judgment.
As follow-up to the concept of advantage/disadvantage you may need a greater understanding in evaluating "increased physical play." Are you confident that officiating crews are really that neglligent? Do you truly understand officiating to the level you can legitimately assess them? In regards to the game you discussed in the commentary, perhaps the crew missed the call (in the photo) and a few others along the way, but I am confident they were fully competent to administer the rules.I challenge you to step over to the "dark side" acquire some training and get on the court with stripes and a whistle. I am confident it will be an epiphany. I would love to see a follow-up article/blog after this experience.

My final observation, in a perfect world, writers and editors would not post an article/blog/commentary online or in print with misspelled words or other grammatical errors. Take a closer look at the last sentence of your sixth paragraph --Conference. Additionally, the first sentence of the seventh paragraph has an unnecessarily repeated word "game." One more thing, as a writer/editor, you have the benefit of time to review your decisions... sports officials need to process and act in split second timing.


Respectfully,

"Willie B. Free"
WIAA Certified Official
#200837

I hope you fixed this to say "you are" or "you're" before you sent it.