Verbals out of Limits

[Ref Daddy]

My Association is recommneding we all develop pre-season our list of words or phrases that will get the T.

What was recommended:

1) F Bombs
2) Cultural slurs
3) Blasphemy ("Gods name in vain")
4) Individual insults meant obviously to taunt/hurt

Comments?

[Dan_ref]

I don't have a list. I've T'ed coaches for questioning a
travel call. I've ignored f bombs. Each situation is
different except each T should improve the game.

[rainmaker]

Seems to me its smart to have a list in your head, but I wouldn't share it with anyone (except maybe your partner) ahead of time. Also, it might save some trouble to compare lists with others in your association. For instance, it may be that in your area, the f-bomb is an automatic DQ, but how to treat "the Lord's name in vain" is less rigid. Or whatever. I think, although we each have our own hot-button issues, we should be at least in the same ball-park with other refs in our locales.

[mick]

Originally posted by Dan_ref
I don't have a list. I've T'ed coaches for questioning a
travel call. I've ignored f bombs. Each situation is
different except each T should improve the game.

Me, too.
I won't have a list.

[JRutledge]

Originally posted by Ref Daddy
My Association is recommneding we all develop pre-season our list of words or phrases that will get the T.

What was recommended:

1) F Bombs
2) Cultural slurs
3) Blasphemy ("Gods name in vain")
4) Individual insults meant obviously to taunt/hurt

Comments?

You have every right to come up with a list, but I think it seems kind of silly to me. None of these address context or situations. If you want to consider Blasphemy, then maybe you need to check the religious affiliation of the folks making the comments. Not everyone holds the same religious beliefs. If that was the case then Catholic Schools and other religious schools would act better during sporting events. And considering the culural slurs are differnet to differnet people. Where do you draw the line? Because above all else, when you give a T you have to be able to explain and have your judgement not challenged. No differnet than calling a violation or a foul, you do not want such a harsh penalty to be ambiguous. In my opinion, many of these are ambiguous.

Just an opinion.

Peace

[Ref in PA]

I agree with the posters who say you need to take each play in context. I did a boys JV game a couple of years ago where A1 jumped out of bounds to save a ball along the base line. As the ball was blindly thrown back toward the court, it hit B1 in the groin area. As B1 collaped to the floor, he did say (in a weak voice) "Oh F**k". I chose to pass on that one. I blew the whistle for an injury time out and who comes out? The coach and a young lady trainer! There was a lot of blushing going on.

[Brian Watson]

I am sure if the fed wanted us to use a list it would be in the rule book.

I think you get yourself into trouble by saying this will always be a T.

Let's face it one of those things happen just about every game. Are you guys really going to call 1-2 T's a game because you have a list?

You need to use common sense and apply the rule to the sitch.

Like the kid in the previous post who took one for the team, even if it was louder than a whisper, I would have let that go. He earned it.

[DownTownTonyBrown]

Agreed. We shouldn't be making up our own rules.

You set your personal limits and even they change from day to day and game to game. Work to the situation.

Coaches probably recognise the changing situation also. One game he's got a ref that swears right along with him and the next game he's got Pious Peter that T's every utterance.

[ChuckElias]

Hey Tony, how "downtown" can you really be in Idaho?

Seriously, welcome to the basketball side of things. I see that you usually hang out on the baseball side. Nice to have you here.

Chuck

[stripes]

Originally posted by ChuckElias
Hey Tony, how "downtown" can you really be in Idaho?

Chuck

Obviously, you've never been to Idaho Falls

Big time. Very big time.

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally posted by stripes
[/B]

Obviously, you've never been to Idaho Falls [/B][/QUOTE]I spent a week there one day.

[Oz Referee]

I agree with many of the posts here. Cursing is subjective and technical fouls are even more so. It is impractical and pointless to try and say x,y&z always constitute tech fouls.

An incident occurred to me several years ago, I was refereeing a former Yugoslavian league player and he objected to one of my calls. He started talking to me quite loudly in Yugoslavian and after a while I t'd him. His tema-mate (and captain) asked how I could T him, and wanted to know if I spoke Yugoslavian. I don't, but could definitely tell by his body language and tone of voice that he wasn't complementing me on my pants

Use your judgement, sometime the F-word is a tech, sometimes it isn't.

[Mark Dexter]

I went to school at which about half the students were from outside the country - you can tell pretty obviously when someone is using profanity directed toward you.

Of course, the best is when I ref soccer - I know the meanings of a good portion of swears in Spanish.

[rainmaker]

Well, there's no denying that you guys are all better refs than me, and it may be that when I'm at your level, I won't be sticking to a list anymore. With as little experience as I've got, it has been helpful to me to think some things out ahead of time. That way I'm not caught off guard, and I'm not re-acting out of emotion. So I made a little list of sub-rules for myself. It has helped a lot. I don't have to stick to them rigidly, but it gives me a starting place to think something through.

The first coach I had to eject was near the end of my first season. He was a real jerk, (still is, everyone else agrees!). My partner had already given him one T, and then I heard him curse, although it was very quiet. Was it at me? Without question. Would I do it again? I'm not sure, but the fallout was so nasty, that I spent a lot of tiem thinking about it. I reacted emotionally, to the profanity, but with more fore-thought, I might have handled things differently. So I started going over situations in my head, making patterns in my thinking. Which ended up as a little list of rules. It has served me well, and I think other newer refs might also benefit from the exercise.

[JRutledge]

but I would not want to have a list of things that are always going to warrant a T. Because if your list is violated, you will feel compelled to always give a T. Maybe there should be things that you have to address, but sometimes a T is only going exacerbate the situation. I know people do not want to here this, but if your "presence" is such that you exsude control or competence, you might be able to avoid silly Ts and having to threaten players and coaches for behavior. Now for those that think I make this kind of stuff up, should have gone to one of my association meeting tonight. A very will respected and veteran official said the very thing to a group of newer officials tonight. See all we are talking about is conflict resolution and if all you want to do is punish every single infraction or possible infraction, all you will be remembered as someone with a short fuse. I think you should always go into a game with a plan, but to say "no matter what, these are Ts" I think is not a very good tactic to officiating overall.

It is not just how we make calls, we will be judged by the way we deal with the people in the game. If we get that right, we will be precieved as competent in other areas. Officiating is much more a people business than it is what the rules are and how we apply them.

All the good officials keep making that point over and over again.

Peace