Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

I have no idea whether I could ever agree with what the author was eventually going to say. I gave up trying to read it after the first few sentences. What a pretentious little prick.

Typical Dookie.:D

Originally Posted by Pretentious Dookie

There is a widely-accepted code among coaches and officials that says that lines aren’t gray. In other words, officials have some discretion to pass on certain calls in certain situations, such as the marginal travel in the junior varsity contest, the slight bump on the LeBron dunk, the common rather than intentional foul in the calm blow-out. Lines, on the other hand, are lines. Even a toenail on the three-point arc, if seen, means a two-point try, no exceptions. And the same thing goes for the sidelines, baselines, the free-throw lines, and the division line (the only possible exceptions are lane lines on free throws, but that’s a discussion for another time). Out-of-bounds is out-of-bounds. One corollary of this code is that if a player is bumped, then, despite reasonable efforts to stay in, goes out of bounds, it has to be a foul. With no o.o.b., there need be no foul. And, obviously, if the official does not have a good view of the line in question(or can feign a poor look), a foul need not be called (though it does force the official to explain to the supervisor why he was out of position to referee the sideline), and o.o.b. MUST not be called.

Those who have seen the same regular-definition replays that I have may be screaming by now, “But it’s not clear he was o.o.b, in which case the foul shouldn’t have been called!” To that quite reasonable position I have two responses: first, it is indeed not clear on video replay, but the official, whatever the criticisms, was exactly where he was supposed to be on the play, which is to say he had a perfect angle for judging o.o.b. So it’s tough for me to definitively say he was wrong given our respective looks at the play. The second, and of greater meta-import, is that it wasn’t clear to the commentators either, yet they did exactly zero real work to try to help clear up the question. There was ample time in the minute or so between the final foul and Wallace’s first free throw for any one of them to ask the producer, “Can we get a clear shot of the sideline there?” But none did. Then, when they finally defaulted into that angle, there was no one calling for a freeze-frame (where was Vitale!).

Originally Posted by RichMSN

I forced myself. Pretentious is right. Why write clearly when trying to sound intelligent and witty is so much more fun (for the writer)? He is much clearer in these paragraphs, though, and is right on the money:

Originally Posted by hbioteach

Good foul call. My 1st reaction was bad call. Defender contact forced player out of bounds. No choice but to call the foul.

Originally Posted by Reffing Rev.

Takes guts, the kind of guts that gets you on that floor that night.

Originally Posted by Larks

Be honest - If you had this play in your biggest rivalry game under similar circumstances (under 2 or 3 seconds), do you take the foul or pass?

Originally Posted by Larks

Ok - a thought.

In that game, they had anywhere from 4 - 8 cameras shooting in high def. They had the ability AFTER the fact to see that play in high def with all the video tools ESPN has to offer.

Lets take this play and put it in a high school environment in a rivalry game. We wont have that luxury at that level and will have to live and die with a call like this. What you hope is that one of the two cameras have a good look at this play so that you have something to stand on after the fact with the coaches / assignor unless you are a very tenured and respected guy in that league (I realize not all leagues are coaches leagues).

More than likely, after the game, would a blurry DVD shot from your basic home edition sony cam corder support this call? Do we care?

Do factors like this lead people to pass in high school and let it go OT?

Be honest - If you had this play in your biggest rivalry game under similar circumstances (under 2 or 3 seconds), do you take the foul or pass?

Originally Posted by pizanno

In my neck of the woods, it's very different. And not because of my two cents. Because it's the commissioners that oversee the schools, then hire my supervisors, who then hire(d) our vets, who retain them and reward them with schedules and playoff assignments (with coaches input) who create and perpetute the culture and philosophy of having "common sense" in tough situations.

I'm not a D1 men's official, but I know enough of them to know that at that level, they "apply" the rules and philosophies very differently than I do.

Until the day when you take Hank Nichols' job JR, my supervisors and colleagues will still have a job while you may continue to criticize us on how we don't deserve to wear the stripes.

Originally Posted by Larks

Be honest - If you had this play in your biggest rivalry game under similar circumstances (under 2 or 3 seconds), do you take the foul or pass?

Originally Posted by Larks

Ok - a thought.

In that game, they had anywhere from 4 - 8 cameras shooting in high def. They had the ability AFTER the fact to see that play in high def with all the video tools ESPN has to offer.

Lets take this play and put it in a high school environment in a rivalry game. We wont have that luxury at that level and will have to live and die with a call like this. What you hope is that one of the two cameras have a good look at this play so that you have something to stand on after the fact with the coaches / assignor unless you are a very tenured and respected guy in that league (I realize not all leagues are coaches leagues).

More than likely, after the game, would a blurry DVD shot from your basic home edition sony cam corder support this call? Do we care?

Do factors like this lead people to pass in high school and let it go OT?

Be honest - If you had this play in your biggest rivalry game under similar circumstances (under 2 or 3 seconds), do you take the foul or pass?

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

Those observations I agree with. I just couldn't get through the pretentious little prick's preamble to actually read them. :) Got no time for writers that feel the need to use several paragraphs to show everybody how much smarter they are than their readers before they get to what they want to say.

Originally Posted by jbduke

Is it even possible, in your mind, that the writer of the column wasn't trying to "prove how much smarter" he/she is than any of the readers, but instead was trying to give an introduction to some important ideas related to the coverage of the play?

It's beyond clear that the quality of the introduction is questionable, but the ideas in the beginning of the column certainly seemed relevant to the story as the writer tried to tell it.

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

I think that your supervisors and colleagues are very lucky that Hank Nichols isn't their boss. :D

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/...nova_call.html

It is what it is.