My 2 Cents
 

If the coaches would coach, the players play, then every game would be a smooth game.

I would have thought seriously about slapping this idiot coach and his school district with a defamation suit.

Coach's reputations
 

Haven't you ever hear refs make comments like, "I am reffing at X city tomorrow. I hate that coach. I know he will be all over me/us with the first whistle. Well, I ain't giving him any calls, that's for sure." You get a coach like the one in this story, where he has probably mentioned this race issue in the past, or, after other games. Refs may be making these comments in jest, but, their implication to the uneducated general public is that refs do in fact come in with thoughts on how they will ref a game. I know of one coach in particular that very few refs accept games for. Those that go, if they've heard of this guy, probably come in biased.

Found an article about this game and thought I would highlight a few points...


"In the second overtime, South senior Brian Marvie came to the line with his team trailing, 58-55, with 45 seconds left. Marvie made the first foul shot and missed the second, but classmate Elijah Hughes was there to get the rebound. He missed a jumper and senior Jinazean Ball missed the put-back and Murphy came down with the rebound and drew a foul — much to the chagrin of the South bench, which thought Hughes and Ball were fouled moments before."


Hmmmm... missing foul shots as well as missing second and third chance put backs. How many more of these misses were there during the game...


"Baldarelli stole a pass to end the game and start the celebration. "

Those damn refs should have never let that pass get stolen....

"After Holy Name’s Drew Rolfe missed two foul shots at the other end, South tried to get the ball to Ball, who drove the lane, but was blocked by Emil Igwenagu with 5.2 seconds left. The Naps found Igwenagu open for a jumper, but it hit the rim to force the second overtime."

Those refs should have made that ball go in. How dare they...

"Ball finished with 20 points, but made just 8 of 30 shots."

8 out of 30???? Looks like the refs played good defense...


But for you conspiracy theorists maybe you can find something in this quote....

"The win gives the Naps a 3-1 edge in the season series. Holy Name defeated South at the IAABO Tournament in the Colonels’ season-opener, 71-51, and then again at home, 61-58. In between South won at home, 63-56. It was the Colonels’ second consecutive double-overtime game, as South defeated St. John’s, 79-75, last Thursday."

Hmmm.... the Naps always beat south at home.....

Re: Coach's reputations
 

I've never heard an official talk about not giving a coach any calls. I have heard and said that a coach can be a pain in the rear and if he or she is again, I won't be shy to give a T. If I heard another official talk about "not giving a coach any calls, that would be someone I wouldn't want to work with.

Sounds like he said it BEFORE they lost, like when they had a big lead. No wonder the kids started to think about it and I am sure that it affected the way they played.

I'm certainly not going to jump in with both feet on the side of the coach in this case.

Two of my own biases jump to the front when I see a story like this:

1) Coaches can get very emotional to the point of being irrational especially around playoff time.

2) There is still an awful lot of racism out there that we seem unable to face.

I can't really comment much directly on the incident or the article without knowing a hell of a lot more. I will say that, lacking more information, it doesn't seem right for the paper to publish the names of the officials.

I also want to state that, in my opinion, both on this board and elsewhere we put an unfair burden on the victims of racism to prove each case before they speak up. We all acknowledge that racism still exists in some theoretical sense, but if someone cries racism, 9 times out of 10 (a statistic I willingly admit I pulled out of my butt) they are accused of playing the race card or making excuses for their own faliures and any productive discussion is cut off. I think it's important to imagine what kind of perfect storm involving a burning cross and a drinking fountain sign someone would have to have in order to come here and spark a decent discussion about race.

We can point to the fact that this incident is too shrouded in questions to lend itself to a good discussion. Fine, take a step or two back and make a point. Or answer examples without names or other specifics without using the same conversation stoppers. We need to stop congratulating ourselves for the civil rights advancements that were made 30 and 40 years ago and allow serious and difficult conversations to occur.

I have seen a few references recently to adults who allow students to use racism as an excuse to fail being banned from working with kids (although I suspect that many people who try to help kids deal with racism also try to help them battle through it). So far, I haven't seen anyone call for a ban on adults who propogate subtle racism against kids or engage in low expectations. Is that because there is no concern about these people working with kids, or because we don't think this exists? Are we afraid that there wouldn't be enough adults left to work with kids?

I hate when people assume you are racist just because you are white. I worked a girl's youth league game a while back. 8th grade girls, one team was all black, the other team was all white except for one girl. It was a good game and at halftime, we sat in the corner and talked about how well both teams were playing for being 8th graders. Just then a parent (black) came up and said we were calling in favor of the white team because we want them to win and she didn't like it! It wasn't 20 seconds later that another parent (white), yelled down at us..."what's the matter, you don't think white people can play ball? you won't give them any calls !" ........You can't win ! By the way, the kids were great and every player came by after the game to thank us for calling the game...both teams!

Then according to your theory that if the all of the players on both teams are blue eyed blondes then the officials should be blue eye blondes.

MTD, Sr.

Hate begets Hate.

This isn't about race it is being anti-catholic. You know the Catholics and the Jews run the world especially high school and middle school basketball. These officials will get a call from the Pope if the don't fix the game.

If you are narrow minded, non-thinking individual of course you would look at it that way. I did not say "only put" one group of people on the game. I said put people on the game on a more regular basis and you will take away that point of view. Of course I have never known of anyone making an issue out of what eye color someone is and how that affects their decisions. I have "actually" heard of situations where people of different races have different motives and make decisions based on those motives. So if you want to avoid the criticism, then put more diverse officials on games, then you will not have to worry about what a coach or fans might say about bias as it relates to race.

Peace

I hate it when white people assume I am not qualified because I am Black. So well all have our accusations we have to deal with. ;)

Peace

I hate it when fans and coaches don't think I'm qualified because I'm wearing black and white stripes.

:)