as a crew...

[Adam]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

If that is the case then none of us should ever officiate. That is life. Things in life can always be misconstrued, but that does not mean that one interaction is going to be the end all be all in someone's career. We are talking about one play here that was talked about. I do not think anyone should walk on egg shells to avoid all conflicts of any kind.

Knowing what to say, how to say it, and to whom to say it are important traits no matter what part of life we're discussing. It's also different than walking on egg shells.

Originally Posted by JRutledge

I understand this, but this was not apart of the OP. He did not say his partners were in any particular stature other than they were veterans, which probably means they had some experience on him in officiating. Heck you might have a person that has a little experience on someone that has little perspective and they could "run and tell" what happened. We cannot spend all our time worrying about that or it will make us ineffective as officials. All veterans were helped at one time by other veterans when they were younger officials. I just think we should not automatically assume that everyone that has worked longer than you has the interest or the ability to ruin you over one game.

Here is the relevant comment from the OP: "questioning seasoned veterans (a no no on our board when working with certain vets)."

I took this to mean that this group was, essentially, part of my #3 above. It doesn't mean the OP shouldn't or couldn't have probed deeper, but I think it does imply that he needs to be professional in how he brings it up. As scrapper points out, there are ways to do this by bringing it back upon yourself. For me, I can still use the "I just want to know how it's done here" card. In the OP, I could have said, "I just want to know how you guys do it so I'm consistent, but I was taught to come in with a foul in that situation. Are you saying it's expected to wait until the lead asks for help on this play?"

Maybe it shouldn't be that way, but sometimes it just is.