Bad newbie story

mplagrow · #1 (**permalink**) Mon Feb 09, 2004, 11:34pm

I've seen a few guys post rough start stories, and it makes me wish I had a forum like this to 'cry in my beer' to about 10 years ago when I started officiating. I've got a pretty unique first-year ref story, wonder how you'd handle it or if you've had anything like it.

Boys' 8th grade, team A was from an all-black inner city school. I was known to them, they contacted me to ref. Team B was a suburb school, all white, they also contacted a ref, so I'd never worked with him before.

Three quarters go by, and 'their' official seemed to really have it in for team A--very lopsided calling. The large contingent of black fans were getting angry with the one sided calling. It all comes to a head when the ball went OOB on his sideline, he paused for three seconds, then awarded the ball to team B.

Team A's coach, near me, says, "If he wasn't sure, shouldn't he have called a jump ball???" I asked him if he'd like to talk about it to the other ref, and he said yes, so I told him there was a question. He went to the bench, and coach A asked him the same question (while seated on the bench). BAM! Technical. Coach says, "For what??" BAM! Two T's, leave the gym!

Coach gathers his cool, straightens his tie, and walks out calmly. As play continued, coach walked back in and sat in the back row of the bleachers. Ref stops the game, yells at him, "YOU HAVE TO LEAVE THE GYM!" Coach again gathers his cool and walks out the door. Fans are yelling and screaming, ready to riot, and now this takes the cake: he tells me, "You go quiet those fans down!" I told him he made the call, he can quiet them down. He got angry at me and told me I'm supposed to back his call! Not knowing what to do, I made a poor choice--finished the game and called everything I could the other way to balance it out. In retrospect, I think I should have put my whistle down and told him it was his game now!

I am not making this up. Yes I still ref!

PS-This was resolved with meetings between staff from both of these (sigh) Christian schools. Ultimately it was decided that neither of us would ref between these schools again. Although the black school lost by one point that night, they met again in a tournament with different refs. The black school won by about 30.

rainmaker · #2 (**permalink**) Tue Feb 10, 2004, 01:10am

Quote:

Originally posted by mplagrow
I've seen a few guys post rough start stories, and it makes me wish I had a forum like this to 'cry in my beer' to about 10 years ago when I started officiating. I've got a pretty unique first-year ref story, wonder how you'd handle it or if you've had anything like it.

Boys' 8th grade, team A was from an all-black inner city school. I was known to them, they contacted me to ref. Team B was a suburb school, all white, they also contacted a ref, so I'd never worked with him before.

Three quarters go by, and 'their' official seemed to really have it in for team A--very lopsided calling. The large contingent of black fans were getting angry with the one sided calling. It all comes to a head when the ball went OOB on his sideline, he paused for three seconds, then awarded the ball to team B.

Team A's coach, near me, says, "If he wasn't sure, shouldn't he have called a jump ball???" I asked him if he'd like to talk about it to the other ref, and he said yes, so I told him there was a question. He went to the bench, and coach A asked him the same question (while seated on the bench). BAM! Technical. Coach says, "For what??" BAM! Two T's, leave the gym!

Coach gathers his cool, straightens his tie, and walks out calmly. As play continued, coach walked back in and sat in the back row of the bleachers. Ref stops the game, yells at him, "YOU HAVE TO LEAVE THE GYM!" Coach again gathers his cool and walks out the door. Fans are yelling and screaming, ready to riot, and now this takes the cake: he tells me, "You go quiet those fans down!" I told him he made the call, he can quiet them down. He got angry at me and told me I'm supposed to back his call! Not knowing what to do, I made a poor choice--finished the game and called everything I could the other way to balance it out. In retrospect, I think I should have put my whistle down and told him it was his game now!

I am not making this up. Yes I still ref!

PS-This was resolved with meetings between staff from both of these (sigh) Christian schools. Ultimately it was decided that neither of us would ref between these schools again. Although the black school lost by one point that night, they met again in a tournament with different refs. The black school won by about 30.

Tough game in the first year! Just out of curiosity, are you black? I'm just wondering if the "partner"'s prejudices included you.

mplagrow · #3 (**permalink**) Tue Feb 10, 2004, 07:47am

I was going to mention that, no, I am not black but I don't think that rules out any prejudice on my part. I taught school in the inner city, so I would have to say I was biased by that.

rainmaker · #4 (**permalink**) Tue Feb 10, 2004, 09:48am

I was wondering more about your partners prejudices than yours. I was assuming that since the inner-city school asked you to ref, you probably didn't have a lot of prejudice -- at least not against black kids. Are you prejudice against suburban whites? Perhaps a little. I know I tend to favor black inner-city kids a little sometimes -- I live in the inner city and all my kids have attended inner city schools. But I suspect you have probably dealt with it more than the other guy had. Refs are confronted by these types of situations more than many folks are, and it appears to me that most have dealt with the issue and are pretty un-biased. There is the occasional person who hasn't.

And of course, there's always the possibility that the guy was just a homer and race didn't have a lot to do with it.

footlocker · #5 (**permalink**) Tue Feb 10, 2004, 10:06am

wow, that sucks rainmaker. I like your hindsight idea. Drop the whistle and give him the game. But I doubt that it would have helped clam the situation. Did this incidinet happen in the second half? Could you two have gotten on the same page at half time?

rainmaker · #6 (**permalink**) Tue Feb 10, 2004, 10:14am

Quote:

Originally posted by footlocker
wow, that sucks rainmaker..

Merciful Heavens!!!

Oh, I see, you mean "That sucks , rainmaker..." You are demoted to 4th grade until you pass your comma test.

And, BTW, rainmaker didn't post the original sitch.

[Edited by rainmaker on Feb 10th, 2004 at 09:22 AM]

mplagrow · #7 (**permalink**) Tue Feb 10, 2004, 08:05pm

Nope, it happened in the fourth quarter, right at the beginning. I don't know, maybe he just had a bad day or something. It was maybe my third game officiating, so I know I didn't handle it well. At that time in my life, I would probably agree that I had some prejudice against 'suburban white kids' because I spent so much of my time in the inner city. I had only one white student in four years of teaching!

w_sohl · #8 (**permalink**) Tue Feb 10, 2004, 11:41pm

The only balck and white I see on the court is in my and my partners uniforms and the teams uniforms if that is their colors. I can't understand how you can favor any one race over another no matter who or what you taught or what your background is. Not condemming anyone, just can't understand (comprehend) it.