The Devil's Advocate

[sunfudblu]

With the winter month's upon us I'd like to get some feedback on some similar experiences you may have had on this or a similar subject.

I recently attended the Junior College National Volleyball Championships in Toledo, Ohio. My wife's team never made it to the final four and the team, including the parents of the players, wanted to blame the ref for them not getting there. So far this doesn't sound unusual and being an ump myself, I am usually flying solo when I find myself in the middle of "the officiating cost us the game" conversation.

The next morning at breakfast was when I found myself sitting with my wife and 2 parents discussing the ref's calls. I did admit that the ref did call a LOT of lift violations. He killed a lot of rallys and at times took the game away from the girls. At one time he even called a lift on a girl going up for a block!!

Anyway, the parents shifted the conversation to their daughter in high school and how the volleyball coach didn't really know how to coach in that their daughter never knew the difference until she joined a club team and realized that they actually ran plays on the court.

After hearing this I said, "So it's not only the officiating that can cost a team the game it can also be the coaching?" Well, needless to say that didn't go over too well.

Any similar experiences??