[TheOracle]

Originally Posted by whistlemania

You've hit on an important issue to this whole debacle of 'integrity'. The Ed Rush saga isn't just about what was said in a room to a group of officials and then having those comments misappropriated by an overzealous official--that happens in every association across America hundreds of times a year, if not more. This whole outburst was about power within the conference--specifically coaches power and how that power translates to who works games and how they work games. Under Rush me thinks the coaches had lost that power and that leads to scary times for a fraternity that has long enjoyed such power. That is why the whole issue of integrity as it pertains to officials based on these comments by Ed Rush laughable in context to a much larger problem of the integrity of officiating programs that are influenced by Coaches that TARGET (to use the hot word of the debate) officials via scratch lists either explicitly (associations or conferences that still allow literal scratch lists) or implicitly through the very real power that coaches throw around behind closed doors. If anyone doesn't think that Coach K, Bobby Knight, Digger Phelps, Dean Smith, Roy Williams, Bill Self, etc etc etc don't have weight that they throw around behind closed doors about officials that they don't like and therefore conveniently don't get due to the weakness of conferences they or you are either naive or complicit. Ed Rush's background as an NBA official, where assignments are made based on a much different systematic approach, came with concerns from the get go amongst coaches and 'veteran officials' alike. A whole generation of officials had finally made it on the old system of not rankling feathers just in time to reap the rewards and in comes a Supervisor that wants you to 'take care of bench Coaches!!!!!!', referee the defense, work on your rules and mechanics. Perish the thought. And when you didn't or couldn't based on your make up you were one or two, or maybe even three steps closer to the door. A year of rumbling had to lead up to this moment on both sides of the fence, coaches and veteran officials alike. And if your conference integrity is based on a system such as one that Coaches have say in who works and who doesn't then you don't have integrity to begin with because by its very nature that compromises the officials ability to handle situations with disregard to punitive measures on the backside. Which leads us to JRuts comments on lazy sports journalism whose members covet access to the coaches like Sportscenter anchors covet hair dye. So when a reporter hears a spiteful referee talk in the same manner/vein about a supervisor they have already been hearing rumblings about its easy to throw around terms like Bully and control freak. For a reporter this had to be the motherlode....Butter my apple with the coaches of the conference I cover, get collaboration of an anonymous referee and lead a witch hunt all in one story. For me this is a sad day for officiating. For once we as a community had a commissioner willing to stand by its officiating community, much more so than many on this board to be honest, and willing to see what happened for what it was...a misuse of language, a joke that missed its mark, admittedly badly so.

Careful folks, glass houses and all. Think long and hard next time that snappy little quotes floats its way to the top of your noggin when dealing with an all powerful coach lest you receive the very punishment that many of you called for here in your comments, namely the exact punishment that befell a coach that physically, mentally and verbally abused his players for multiple years. If that doesn't show how the two groups are viewed and treated I don't know what does. And the most hurtful thing of all is that we as a community can't or won't stand up for ourselves and support one another when one of us is in the crosshairs for something that deserved reprimanding but most certainly didn't warrant losing a job over.

Read what's out there tonight. Still feel this way?