[OrStBballRef]

So Oregon recently gave the green light for 3 man crews. Only certain leagues adopted this for this past season. On the train into work this morning I read an article about a discussion made with several coaches in the area some of which are retired. Naturally the question about 3 man crews came up...here are the responses listed from the article:

<< The PIL and Metro leagues are using three-man officiating crews this season, the first time that has been employed in our state. A good idea?

Coach 1: You might need three referees in the NBA. You might need three in college. But the high school court is smaller. I told a ref after a recent game, “You probably like (the three-man crew), because you don’t have to run as far or work as hard.” They want guys who are 286 pounds and can still ref — yeah, but at midcourt. It’s a waste of money. You get two good (refs) and one bad, and the bad guy is over there making a bad call.

Coach 2: I don’t see the quality of the officiating all of a sudden getting better. It’s tough to be a good referee. There aren’t enough good officials around that you can afford to have three.

Coach 3: The idea was it would increase (the referees’) ability to not miss as many calls. But now you have guys saying, “I didn’t see the play. That was his call.” You hear that more than before>>

Now I don't know if there was more to the discussion or not that got left on the editing floor, but I try to see these type of comments through the coaches eyes, but some of this just kind of irks me. Some of this may be legitimate gripes but a lot of this is just plain lack of knowledge about officiating.

Especially the last comment, of course you're going to hear that more. You're not paying us to put 6 eyes always on the ball. I would hope if I'm the C right by the bench I'm not looking across court, but instead on my half of the court.

The lack of true understanding of officiating and just asinine statements that we want officials who are overweight just to stand at half court to justify 3 man or not having to work as hard just annoys me.

I really don't care what coaches think, but it's just annoying to find stuff like this in print.