I'm an assistant coach at 4A school in Maryland. At halftime of a game recently, the scorer asked me to knock on the referees dressing room door to tell them there was 3 minutes left before the start of the second half. Since I was standing by the door. I knocked and announced the time. As I finished someone opened the door and to my surprise both referees were standing in the middle of the floor with the home team and coaching staff. I was floored. I stood and watched with my mouth open as they exited the room. One official saw my surprised look and turned to me and said "What?" I bit my tongue because we were the visiting team and still had a second half to play. I was quite angry about the appearance of favoritism. I wanted to just ask them about that after the game but they were gone before I had a chance to talk to them. I mean there was a classroom right next door to where the officials were that either the officials or the other team could have used. Am I paranoid or what?

Brian Williams

Bad move on the officials part, it was innappropriate. It may have actually been harmless, but has the appearance of potential favortism, and should be avoided.


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Brian Johnson

I don't know if you are paranoid or not. I'm not a doctor, but I do ref.
I think it was wrong, ...pure and simple.
But, I wonder why the in the heck the scorer sent you there in the first place. That's not something I would think the home team would do to a visitor.
Then I wonder why in the heck would the Coached and Refs be in the same room, too.
allcity, I think you got set up!
mick

Absolutely, positively inappropriate of the officials. Doesn't matter if the intentions were good or not, they should never put themselves in that position for many reasons.
As much as we continually preach professionalism it amazes me how often the fraternization occurs. The perception hurts our credibility as objective professionals.

Bad officials - no donut!