Critical Officiating article from a local news paper.
 

Officiating Article by the Famous Taylor Bell

I just thought I would post this article. It caused such a stir at a meeting I attended this evening. I was wondering what others think even if you do not know all the details. I will comment later after people get a chance to read the article. There are so many things wrong with this article in the first place.

Peace

Age going up
 

I think it is funny that the age of officials is going up. We have the same problem in Michigan. While abuse can be used as the reason, in northeast Michigan our best export is our young people. In the 34 years since I started officiating the number of kids in the local school system has gone down 50%.

I have also found that people that get in now seem to think after one season you have a full varsity schedule and should be doing tournaments by year three. When I started one did not expect to many varsity games until you did at least three years JV ball, now it is possible to get games in one year.

The hardest thing I have to teach is the three leg stool approach, knowledge of rules-how rules are enforced-mechanics. I get upset when I see the trail in a three man crew two feet past half court.

That being said some of us have changed out traing methods but getting every body in our area to follows or tries to follow. I can remember doing evals on new officials, but few guys will, even if they got the person started.

Wow, some article! Where to start? Some interesting thoughts for sure.....

Games have no flow.....no finesse anymore. Who's watching these guys? Refs - making up and enforcing/ not enforcing their own rules? Refs told coaches to "sit down and shut?" (Unacceptable) Officials bigger than the game? Uniformity = consistancy (we have talked about that many times). A Ref has a really good game and blows one call, then, it equals a poor game.....

Not surprisingly, most of these statements were given by anonymous sources..... except some of the nicer comments by seasoned coaches.

Where there's smoke, there's usually fire, so there's bound to be some truth to what is said here....but, how much is just belly aching?

Seems like some coaches/admins want their cake and to eat it too, i.e. The coaches want seasoned, experienced refs who know what they're doing, until they don't like what/how they call......then, they want some younger folks to replace these guys.....but, they can't recruit younger refs because it's not worth the abuse..... A vicious circle.

JMO. Gives you a lot to think about doesn't it?
Thanks for sharing!

It's the old "Let Them Play" / "Someone's Going to get Killed" discussion.

IMO, and in general only, the coaches complain / comment more when we call a foul than when we don't. So, the coaches, overall, are asking for the more physical game.

And, 300 HS in the Chicago area (SWAG), playing 25 games each = 3,750 varsity games for each sex. I'm sure that not every game was perfectly called and that some coach was to STFU and that some official decided not to call the rules, etc.

When I stop hearing coaches and fans yelling '3 seconds' during rebounding action, I will be of the opinion that they possess some rules knowledge. I don't know who determined this guy was 'famous'. I never heard of him. Until coaches realize that they hold the key to containing rough play by substituting offending players, officials will continue to receive blame. Calling games so tightly that the rough play is 'contained' will result in complaints that the games have no 'flow'.

Those are some of my observations.

This article is a joke...not even worth commenting on.

But where did this come from?

That sure seems like a quote that was pulled out the middle of a conversation. There is no context for it.

Can we critique this guy's jounalitist style or will that offend fiasco? :rolleyes:

I thought the same thing. Either there's more to the background than is being reported here or this particular coach was answering a particularly gratuitious question from the reporter.

I like grunewar's comments. I also keyed on the paragraph he (she?) quoted:

The anonymous nature of the coaches' comments speaks volumes by itself. Is "cowardly" too strong a word? I don't know, but it seems to fit.

Where does the comment about being bigger than the game come from? How do you go from "the game is getting generally more physical" to "the officials think they're bigger than the game"? That's a coach's attitude, which I think is fairly common for some reason, and not something that is supported by a particular style of play.

Stupid comments from the coaches for the most part.

WOW!!!!

Taylor Bell is/was a well respected high school reporter for the Chicago Sun Times who retired a 7-8 years back, but has resurfaced again and does spot pieces. I always respected his knowledge especially of the history of Chicago sports, but this is really garbage with seemingly nothing but a sour grapes dig or two by a few coaches.

''But they weren't emphasized during the season,'' one coach said. ''Hopping is a rule that has been in place for a long time but hasn't been enforced. Several coaches were chastised by officials for asking it to be called. They were told to sit down and shut up because they wouldn't call it.''

In my wildest dreams, I can't imagine ANY official I've ever worked with, good or bad, telling a coach to sit down and shut up.

Ironically, I was telling another official during the season that I really saw good consistent officiating on ALL levels that I've worked this year from kids games both boys and girls to state tournament games.

And I saw plenty of palms/carry calls during state tournament games. I attended or officiated approximately 10 tourney games and believe me, it was emphasized.

I'd like to extend an invite to Mr. Bell to attend Tom O'Neil's camp to open his eyes to the level of instruction and scrutiny most officials go through in the effort to self improve.

This piece is out of the Geraldo Rivera school of journalism.

It's one long, unsubstantiated, anonymous, incoherent rant and rave. It just strings together complaints from some number of random coaches. There is little, or mostly no, context for any of the comments. There is no data to back any of it up. There's no objectivity; not even a pretense at being unbiased.

In fact, whenever this writer quotes a source with a positive opinion, it's quickly followed with a statement about how that person "admitted" or "conceded" points the writer is trying to make. The only named sources get set up as straw men for the unnamed sources.

This piece of journalism, IMHO, wouldn't get a passing grade in any journalism 101 class. It's little more than typical sports writer cry-baby ranting.

Maybe Mr. Bell has a grand-daughter playing now and felt his little princess got totally roughed up, not to mention completely screwed because the big, bad officials let her completely unprincipled opponents get away with "obvious" hops, palms, and three seconds? :D

Same story, different state......coaches say the same thing in this area, but it not printed.

Sounds more like a difference in journalistic standards.

Ok, this article does touch on some truth in officiating. It may not be totally accurate but there is some truth to it.

Hell, you can identify that by some officials who frequent this very forum.

1). How they don't like a rule!

This problem does not just exist in Ill.

I will go as far to say that it has been said you will call what assignor(s)/supervisor(s) want you to call if you want to progress or work. It's that want the article is touching on.

Waiting for the blast!!

I can only speak for myself, I've never had an assignor tell me what to call other than rules.