Ref walks off court during game
 

I don't believe this story was ever shared with the Forum and I've been meaning to post this link: Michigan basketball referee walked off court for right reason

A friend of mine was part of this crew and, suffice to say, it was the strangest thing that's ever happened to him in a game. While this writer does a nice job in Metro Detroit covering HS basketball, I doubt there will be many, if any, of you that agrees with this being the "right reason" to leave a game AND your crew members.

You're right...you'll be hard pressed to find anyone on this forum that agrees with the official's actions or the writer's opinion. By walking off, he hung EVERYBODY else involved out to dry. If he didn't have the stones to take care of business and do his job, he never should have accepted the assignment. To compound the matter, the official's comment at the end of the article: "In retrospect, did I do the right thing and would I do it again? Yeah, I would walk off again."

"Coward" is the word that comes to mind here.

As for the writer...in what universe is there a "right reason" for abandoning your responsibility in the middle of a game (and leaving your crew hanging)??? In his case, the word "idiot" comes to mind.

No argument there. As an independent contractor, my opinion is one agrees to officiate the game from start to finish. Leaving early is a breach of that contract/promise.


Living in the paper's coverage area, I'll admit I'm familiar with both the sportswriter and the coach from my statistician days.

I wasn't at the game, so I can't comment on what happened. Still, a lot of the writer's articles during the past few sports seasons appear to go out of their way to portray game officials in a negative light :mad:. That makes it difficult for me to read his columns.

Yeah, that was very improper. Unless he was injured or got sick that should have never happened. He should have just T'd up everyone like in "Forget Paris" and called it a day.

The problem is that we act like giving a T is such a bad thing and we act as if we have to always talk people off the ledge with their behavior. Instead of doing this, he cracked and walked away. That never should have happened no matter how frustrated he got.

Peace

I'd be curious to know what the official's status is for this year or whether he received any more games following that one last season. If I was his assignor I'd find it tough to put him on the court again.

If I saw his name on my schedule next season, that would be a game I would decline or call the assignor and asked to be switched.

I think the sentence in that story that indicates the most about how wrong it was for him to leave was: "Strong knows what he did was outrageous, but he felt he had no other option."

No other option? :confused:

He had lots of options, at least according to the rules - warnings, Ts, ejections, etc.

Here's an off the wall question: what if he had been working two-person? :eek:

There are a few reasons why I would walk off the court in a game. Safety issues, game management refusing to comply with a request of mine, "wreck" league nonsense I don't get paid enough to deal with (you get the gist).

This issue does not come remotely close to justifying walking off the court.

Forfeit ...
 

If I ever decided to walk off the court, it would only be immediately after I said the word "forfeit", and my partner would be walking off into the sunset with me.

NFHS 2-5-4: The referee shall: May declare the game a forfeit when conditions warrant.

NFHS 5-4-1: The referee shall forfeit the game if a team refuses to play after
being instructed to do so by any official. The referee may also forfeit a game if
any player, team member, bench personnel or coach fails to comply with any
technical-foul penalty, or repeatedly commits technical-foul infractions or other
acts which make a travesty of the game.

Man oh man-I could only imagine what would happen if I walked off a volleyball court in the middle of a match like he did.I hope his assignor pulled his remaining assignments because that was an entirely unprofessional action.He should not be out there representing his association if that's how he will act.

Another case where the official is more worried about the post-game ramifications of what he should call rather than taking care of business during the game when he was charged to do so.

States need to drop these automatic suspension rules. Let the officials file a report after a disqualification or ejection and somebody else can determine whether a suspension is truly warranted and for how long.

I do not know if that was the issue or would be the issue. I have no problem with automatic suspensions for getting ejected. There are a lot of officials that have no problem giving Ts and ejecting coaches and players when need be. Also if you do something incorrect, any decision can be reversed in my experience.

Peace

"The situation came to a head when [winning coach] asked [referee] if he could have the same access to the court as [losing coach], who was ignoring the limits of the coaching box."

Are we sure this needs a tech?

In the City of Angels (LA) public league...If a coach is ejected..the game is over and coach automatically sits for next game too. Second Ejection in same season..Coach is done for the year..bye bye

The scenario was exactly the opposite, wasn't it?

Not saying either scenario should result in a T, just want to make sure I'm understanding the real scenario properly.

Regardless of how it turned out, can you imagine just how out of hand the losing coach (Stone) was to even warrant this impromptu stoppage and summit? Sounds like he was ranting, raving, generally acting a fool and making a mockery of things with his behavior to the point the winning coach finally said, "So I guess I can walk all over the court and raise hell every trip too?"

Nothing, however, justifies one member of a crew walking out on his partner(s) and leaving him/them holding the bag.

Reminds me when I was about 5 years in and I met an official with about 20+ years experience who was saying how much coaches loved him. I asked him why that was and we were talking about T's given etc. He told me that in the last 5 years he probably one gave out about 3 T's.

I told him that coaches loved him because they could walk all over him. I then walked away. Ran into him a few years later and he didn't have much to say except that he thought I was an @#$@#. I told him I wish he applied that same logic to the games he worked.

If as an official you don't want to ruffle feathers then you shouldn't ref.

Fixed, thanks!

Yeah I agree this is likely what happened. Obviously if the coach starts in on the officials then they gotta take care of business but if he's going nuts on his team then it's a more delicate situation.

Either way, I'm not letting the other coach appeal for punishment for the other guy. A quick "I'll take care of it" usually works for me.

That's a great story. Refs hold grudges like no other.

He did receive disciplinary action, I'll see if I can get the details. A large issue with the assigning Association & the MHSAA was he talked to the press and provided quotes for publication. He basically compounded his first bad decision with another.

My buddy, Kev, had never reffed with either of them. To make matters even more uncomfortable, Strong Sr. was reffing with his son and those two had driven there together. When Kev and Strong Jr. walk into the officials room after the game, Sr. is sitting there because he needed his ride home. Kev told me nothing was said and he got out of there fast. He'll never forget that game for all the wrong reasons.

It was the losing coach who was out of the coaching box and making a arse of himself. The officials (all of them) screwed up by not penalizing the coach for repeatedly being out of the coaching box. They obviously let too much go for too long in this game before this issue came up.

This official really screwed up though in more ways than one.

In addition to his on court actions he was in clear violation of the MHSAA's media policy by commenting to a reporter about the incident. That is very clearly frowned on by the MHSAA and can (should) result in sanctions from the MHSAA.

This official may be a great official on the court (questionable by what I read about the game), but he certainly needs to do a better job with his handling of people.

I agree with the rest of the commenters that I would not be working with him and would decline assignments if he was listed as a partner, or I would ask to be switched off the game.