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<HTML><BODY BGCOLOR="#afced1"><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE=3 PTSIZE=12 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"><B>I tried to ask some questions on this board last year.Â*Â* I was sincere about the questions, but the way I asked them must have revealed some of my opinions about officiating quality in the PAC 10.Â* In retrospect I should have been more careful with my words, because I attracted some unfocused hostility from a couple of posters here,Â* and my initial questions were never addressed at all.Â* In any case,Â* there has been no change in the policy or product in the PAC this year, and my attitudes haven't changed either.Â* I would like to re-pose my initial questions again though, and I'll be more careful with my choice of words.Â*
My first question has to do with the nature of the interaction between a major conference and a contract basketball official with regard to performance evaluation .Â* Is there a formal review that occurs? And does that take the form that one would think between a supplier and client?Â* And who are the constituencies that a conference supervisor of officials would take into account in that process?Â* Are the conference coaches surveyed about referee quality like students are asked to evaluate their Professors?Â* Or is that something that is taken up with the AD's, or is anyone involved outside of the league at all?Â*Â* As an aside, I can say pretty authoritatively that the fans are not a major element in the PAC 10 procedureÂ* :-)Â*Â* And if there is a formal evaluation,Â* with communicated expectations, does the style of play and how it differs from another conferences come up?Â* We would all agree that officiating styles differ from region to region, and that those styles did not arise randomly.Â* How does a league communicate the subtleties of it's desired style of play and administer its expectations since the rule book does not differ based on the conference in question? <img src="http://www.lendersdaily.com/images/AA/BZ/rimroll1.gif"><P ALIGN=RIGHT></FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff0000" BACK="#afced1" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #afced1" SIZE=6 PTSIZE=24 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"><I>BTTB</B></I></P></FONT></HTML> |
This one won't go over any better.
Why not contact the Pac 10 and put your question toward them? |
Your communication style (large, blue font, animated graphic) suggests that this is some form of entertainment to you, rather than any real effort to be enlightened.
If I am wrong, then as blindzebra suggests, you might want to start by sending a letter to the PAC 10 supervisor of referees and asking him these questions. I would suggest, however, that rather than investing so much effort, that you just realize that refs will make calls that you don't agree with, and accept that as part of the game. |
Your team having another tough year, BTTB? :D
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<HTML><FONT COLOR="#400080" SIZE=3 PTSIZE=12 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Lucida Sans" LANG="0"><B><I>Well I guess that I just can't do it.Â* I really did try to engage some of you in a sincere conversation, even though we disagree, but I'm now convinced it wasn't a reasonable endeavor in the first place.Â* My bad.Â* And I think I must really bug some of you, based on the responses here, which while cordial, are low in their assistance quotients.Â* I also detect a dash of sarcasm by your inference that I wouldn't ask these same questions of Mr. Camenelli.Â* I assure you I have, and I was very pleasant to him too.
As for trying to understand why basketball officials act the way they do, my current theory is that there are certian personality traits that are common to those people that are attracted to the work.Â*Â* For the record, I <U>don't</U> think referees deserve some of the treatment they seem to get, although I can relate to the feeling that can come over an otherwise delightful person when he's been repeatedly provoked.Â* On the other hand, my experience is that you guys don't waste a lot of energy meeting people half way either.Â* Too bad, you had a perfect opportunity to prove me wrong.Â* The fact is that referees miss <U>a lot</U> of calls.Â* The PAC referees specialize in seeing stuff that would have happened if they hadn't called it first. But they'reÂ* dependably inconsistent too, not just from one game and crew to the next, but from one half of play to the next.Â* The reason I know that is because I've observed them hundreds of times, up close.Â* It's not a very controversial opinion in our conference.Â* Listen, I wish it weren't true <U>too.</U>Â* Believe me.Â* There's nothing so annoying as a persistent truth...Â* So, I bid you guys farewell, and could someone try to have the spam I get from this place turned off after i leave?Â* It would be a nice gesture.Â* And my team is doing great this year, thanks for asking.Â* It would be more fun tthough if ....um....the officiating wasn't still so bad.Â* <P ALIGN=RIGHT></FONT><FONT COLOR="#ff0000" BACK="#ffffff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=7 PTSIZE=36 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Lucida Sans" LANG="0">BTTB</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000ff" BACK="#ffffff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=3 PTSIZE=12 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Lucida Sans" LANG="0"> </B></I></P></FONT></HTML> |
I must respectfully disagree with your whole approach. Your question comes down to "Why are these particular referees so bad?" Although you may believe this is an attempt at "sincere conversation," it's not, because the premise you're starting with is one that no official will agree with.
Reread the third paragraph of your second post. Is that really an attempt to engage is a serious dialogue with professionals about their profession? |
I've seen several Pac-10 games this year both in person and on TV and the officiating has been excellent. Have they missed a call now and then? Sure, who hasn't? However, they are excellent officials. Get a life.
Z |
Same time, next year- fanboy.
Buh-bye. PS- keep looking over your shoulder. We officials know where you live. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Bwahahahahaha.......... Lah me. Sorry folks, but it's a complete waste of time trying to explain or reason with clowns like this. Ain't nuthin' gonna change his mind. |
Living on the east coast, I do not see alot of PAC-10 games on TV. I probably watch 50-60 NCAA games a year. The officiating is strong. Do they miss calls? Of course they do. You can not be perfect in this job. But keep this in mind, even if you could be pefrect, you'd still get criticized because of the nature of the game. You have a block-charge call to make, you get the call right and the tape verifies this. Is everyone in the gym going to be happy?
I have seen many PAC-10 officials over the years. Dick Cartmell and Dave Libbey are consistently given Regional Finals and Final Four assignments. Someone thinks they are doing a consistent job. The supervisor of officials in a conference would have a performance evaluation that is quite thorough. I am pretty sure that coaches and AD's comments would be taken in to consideration. I am also certain that the coaches opinions would not be the #1 criteria to determine an official's worhtiness. Last year, a HS coach called my assignor and told him he did not want me to officiate anymore of his games (mostly because of a technical foul I called). My assignor has given me his team 4 times this year. The assignor's question to the coach were: Did he warn you about your behaviour before the T? Was he unprofessional at any time? My assignor had confidence that I could do the job. The coach has not complained since, not formally anyway. I am not sure why you are so preoccupied with the PAC-10 officiating. Here is a suggestion. Join your local referees association and start officiating. Come back to this forum after a while. You will not be bringing up the same points. Jay |
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BTTB = Brains Took The Bus
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Funny how the fanboy wonders why officials "don't meet anyone halfway" when we've got fans who've never done our job once in their lives who think they're qualified to evaluate us. Then HE gets mad when he doesn't get a response.
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I am not a ref and am an avid reader of this forum to learn more about the rules of the game and how they are administered.
From what I know, your premise makes no sense. In our conference, (a major D1 conference) I see officials all of the time who I have seen on TV working the Big East, the SEC, etc. etc. I would bet if you check it out, many of the refs used in the PAC 10 also work multiple other conferences. Officials are the most scrutinized profession I know about - tapes of games are reviewed, individuals are rated, they are coached, etc. I wonder how you would do if your work day were videoed and critiqued. Our conference has a person who oversees officials and includes review tapes of games to rate performance. Coaches can submit tape for review if they think something is wrong but may not publicly criticize officiating - the conference will discipline them if they do. I have deduced that this is because it is the conference policy to not deal with individual calls - good or bad. It would thus be unfair for a coach to criticize a person who is not allowed to respond. Each year they determine which refs (if any) they won’t schedule the next year. All refs are given feedback of deficiencies which have been observed. Refs who do not improve are part of the group not invited back. Nobody claims refs don’t miss stuff or, MUCH less frequently, get stuff wrong. At a game I was at recently, the refs missed a clear push after the ball was dead - the push was to the back of the person who had just fouled the pusher. Fact: replaying the gamed I had TVOed, the refs weren’t looking in the direction where the push happened - they were reporting the foul to the table and beginning to set up the free throw. It was a dead ball after all! Refs can not call what they don’t see. BTW - the team who fouled took that push as a challenge and went on a tear - stealing and scoring a couple of times. The more I learn about the “real” rules (ie, many fans seem to invent their own rules about what is a foul) the more I realize just how good officiating is in the conference I follow. I hope this doesn’t insult you, but I would suggest that part of the problem may be your lack of knowledge. Do you scream about over-the-back “calls” not being made? How about reach in “fouls” the refs miss. If you could find a HS or other official to watch a tape with you and explain what you are seeing you might find that it is not what you THOUGHT you saw. Frankly, instead of some of the amateurish boring and otherwise waste of time half shows which are put on, I wish there was a mini clinic on the rules of the game and officiating. I think informed fans are better fans and there are precious few ways a fan can get informed about this issue. Sorry officials, this is YOUR forum and I hope you will forgive this intrusion but, I just could NOT resist. I’ll go back to reading and learning now. |
Here is the reality.
You can find fans in all conferences and claim that the officials are not very good. I hear the same thing every year I attend the Big Ten Tournament. You would think no team has ever gone to a Final Four because of the refs. Well at least a few years back the Big Ten had the most Final Four appearances than any other conference in the NCAA. That might have changed, but even lately it was not unusual to see two Big Ten teams in the Final Four. Let the fans tell it, the style of play the officials allow was the hindrance of Big Ten dominance.
The fact is that officials in all the major conferences work several conferences. The top officials can be seen in many conferences in the very same week. There is no such thing as a "Pac 10 Referee." An official at that level is working many D1 conferences. I was told recently that the Big Ten got rid of officials that were only working D1 games (one or two games at least) in the Big Ten. Even if you work a couple of games in the big conference, you probably need to have some games in the lesser or mid-major conferences. It is clear that the person that started this thread has very little understanding of how this thing works. Peace |
I am personal friends with a ref on the men's side in the Pac-10. He is unquestionably one of the best refs in the country, and will probably be a nationally recognized leader in officiating as he moves up the ranks. If he's who they choose, I would expect they're a pretty good organization, and that the officiating is just fine.
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Well darn, i thought it was clear that the officiating in the pac 10 was substandard...Why do the refs have to be so unbeliavably eager to blow their whistles? especially for obscure violations that usually do not even take place. Advice: refs need to think before blowing their whistle. everytime someone shoots in the paint does not necessarilly mean that there has to be a foul called
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Who gives a $hit? Not us. Go back to your bridge, troll. |
i dont doubt that
of course you don't give a $hit... thats why there will never be any improvement, and the fans and players in the pac will continue to suffer.
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I have some better advice.
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Peace |
I have three friends (a word I don't use lightly) that currently work in the PAC-10, one of which is my mentor and someone I'm very close with in all aspects of life. My last summer in Vegas, 2002, I was invited to the PAC-10 camp. The PAC-10 invites 12 officials to their camp and the U1s and U2s work also. The games are played by JC teams from California. At the meetings PAC-10 business is handled which is different from other camps since there are only 12 "outsiders" in the room. The PAC-10 staff is the premier conference on the west coast and the staff is made up of strong officials such as:
Dave Libby (I think 7 Final Fours) Charlie Range (I think 6 Final Fours) Dick Cartmel (worked a championship game in the past 5 years) Verne Harris (04 championship game) Mark Reisling Bill Kennedy Bruce Hicks Michael Irving (on the NBA radar) and many others to include losing two guys to the NBA this season. I was blessed to be in a position to be there and it is not an ego thing. I can say for certainty that the PAC-10 tries very hard to do what Hank Nichols wants done. Period. If the original poster wants to put his money where his mouth is then there are opportunities to not only begin officiating but go to the camps where you can work towards earning an invitation (this is a true invitation to the camp in Walnut Creek with $0 out of pocket expenses) to the PAC-10 camp. It would have been much wiser to single out an individiual rather than a whole conference. The facts are every conference has someone in it that isn't as strong as others. That will probably remain until the end of time or politics, which ever comes first. :D By doing this the poster indirectly criticized the staff of the WAC, Big 12, Conference USA, Mountain West, WCC, Big Sky and Big West. As a whole the PAC-10 is good. |
BTTB
I am a tad confused - If you do not officiate, how can you comment(in good conscience) about the officiating, in any league?
Simply because you watch games, regardless of number of games watched or proximity to the court, does not mean you have any idea what is trying to be done out there. If you knew what we have to go through to get NCAA assignments, there is no way that we are going to go out and purposely blow too many whistles or not enough whistles. One lesson for you here - We call what the game gives us according to directives from the conference(s). This is a very elementary explanation and there are many shades of gray to go with this but it doesn't seem like you would care about the intricacies nor do I desire to try to explain them to you. Advice - Throw on some stripes and try to get one call right. Comment - I have never missed one from the bleachers either. AAR |
BTTB, Think about it for a minute
First of all, the higher up the ladder an official goes, the more he or she is scrutinized, evaluated and assessed. The folks who work major college basketball get evaluated constantly.
You are obviously unhappy with the "quality" of the officiating in the PAC-10. You assume, or so it seems from the nature of your questions, that the officials are some gang of loose cannons with their own agenda. Considering the amount of money involved, hundreds of millions of dollars per year, what on earth makes you think that the PAC-10 would hire ANY official that isn't willing to do what the conference wants? Do you think their supervisor of officials is some milktoast figurehead, with no actual power or ability to affect how games are officiated? Do you believe the conference deliberately chose such a person? Do you believe the schools involved would allow such a situation to exist? Hell no! The officials who work in the PAC-10 worked their tails off to get there. The supervisor of officials has literally hundreds of thousands of officials he could choose from. He chooses only those that he feels can do the job. He keeps only those that actually do. If you do not like the way the game is played in the PAC-10, don't stupidly assume that it's the renegade officials who are screwing it up. These are some of the best in the world, and they don't get there or stay there without calling the game the way the league wants it called. Question for you, BTTB. What color is the cover of the NCAA rulebook this year? Do you know? Have you even seen it? Have you ever read it? It's available online, you really should go get it and read the entire thing. Let me give you a challenge: look up the rules on over-the-back and reaching in. Come back here and lets discuss them. Most fans know very little about the rules of the game, even the articulate ones. What's worse, they don't even realize it. I'll let you in on a little secret, TV and radio commentators don't know much about the actual rules either. They get paid to look and sound good and get good ratings. If you're turning to them for your rules knowledge, you are getting nothing more than entertainment mixed with dubious information. Worse, most fans don't even care. They don't want to know. They want to the game to be the way they want it to be and their eyes get all glazed over when you tell them what the rule really says. They get their ignorant thrills yelling "three seconds" anytime they see an opponent in the lane. The times I hear this the loudest are the times when the fans are most wrong about it. They don't know whole rule. They get angry, upset even livid and they are just flat out wrong. Just a hint, you can't have three seconds during a throw-in, when the ball is in back court, or during rebounding. The ones who have advanced beyond three seconds usually jump on the traveling bandwagon next. Whenever an opponent does anything that looks unusual, an ignorant chorus of "traveling" erupts from the bleachers. And they are usually wrong. The three seconds rule is simple compared to the traveling rule. Just a hint, there is no "two step" rule, you cannot travel without having control, and a skilled, athletic player can quicly make an awful lot of movement without traveling. The mere concept of advantage/disadvantage is entirely too much for most fans. A foul is defined as illegal contact that puts an opponent at a disadvantage or gains a player an illegal advantage. It's ALL about advantage/disadvantage. If it doesn't matter to the game (not the same as mattering to a fan), the officials should let it go. If a player can reasonably be expected to play through the contact without being disadvanted, the official should let it go. Oh, and notice the statement about illegal contact, there is a lot of contact that IS legal. You can even have severe contact that is completely legal. And don't get me started on the "call it both ways" ignoramouses. You fans absolutely don't want it called both ways. You want it called your way. Only. All the time. And that, my dear friend BTTB, is the heart of the problem. The officials don't give a rats *** about you or your team. They don't care what you think, feel or believe. Not even a little bit. They can't. Because if they did, they would be biased. You seem dismayed that your attempts at civil dialogue about why the PAC-10 officials are terrible have met with unfriendly response. It's because those of us who have put in the time and effort to understand how to officiate the game readily recognize your complete ignorance. It is obvious. It's like a flashing neon sign. You're here for one reason and one reason only: to find support for your opinions. That's completely disingenuine. Oh, I suppose that you may actually have some kind of pipe dream about changing our minds about how the game should be called. Well, that's more of an acid trip, really. So if you truly want to engage in a dialogue with us on the subject, you've got one of two choices: You can put aside your bias, admit your ignorance (to yourself most of all), and attempt to learn what it's really about from folks who have collectively devoted thousands of years of study and practice (that would be the folks here). Or, better yet, seek out your local officials association, don the stripes, learn the rules, pass the test and gain the experience. I guarantee you that if you'll do that, you will change your ignorant tune. |
Back In The Saddle--
Well said. |
a big bump
the pac 10 officiating was pretty dreadful 5 years ago....i think there has been a decent improvement in the last couple years. Dave Libby is absolutely terrible. |
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1) current NCAA D1 official 2) current NCAA D1 assignor 3) current NCAA D1 evaluator 4) fat-azzed fanboy sitting in La-Z-Boy who's never officiated a game in their life. 5) other. If "other", please tell us your officiating background. Just wondering. Also wondering why you brought this up a year plus later. Also, <b>why</b> is Dave Libby so terrible? From an officiating standpoint? |
The fans in the Pac 10 have been going downhill lately. I understand that they watch re-runs on Fox Pacific,complain about the officiating on last year's games, and open old threads on officials bulletin boards.
Whatever happened to the creative Stanford and Cal fans that used to pull those crazy stunts on each other? |
Besides the age of this thread, Dave Libbey is a great official. Sure, he has probably seen better days, but he tries to do right by the game. Some fans might have a problem with him because he doesn't bow down to anybody. One official from the east coast went so far as to say Libbey is the only official from the west that he would work with, given the choice.
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You must be an Arizona fan.
:D |
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Soooo.....you think JR's making a connection between college evaluators and "fat-azzed fanboy sitting in La-Z-Boy who's never officiated a game in their life."???!! I know I don't. Not me, nope, no way no how. :eek: |
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