I received my June 2003 issue of Referee today and Mark has a nice letter printed in the Letters to the Editor section. Mark's letter was a great piece of writing and I agree with him 100%. Having said that, I know that I have given any further posts by Mark the kiss of death.

MTD, Sr.

Damn - where did I go wrong? ;)

So what was the subject and gist of this letter? :confused:

Have them print a retraction in the July issue!

:D

Here's the text of the email I sent to them. I cannot represent that this is the letter they printed, since that may be copyrighted, :p but I own my emails, so here it is:

Although I enjoyed the article "Game Management or Game Manipulation" by Patrick Rosenow in the May 2003 issue of Referee, I must take exception to one of the examples given.

In the section entitled "Pass or Foul", the author takes the position that giving the ball back to the team who last touched it because there was "not enough contact to call a foul" when B1 goes over A1's back and taps the ball off A1 OOB, is considered to be good game management, but I totally disagree with this. If there was enough contact for a foul, then call it. If there wasn't, don't penalize the defense by giving the ball back to the offense. If you do this, using as an excuse that it's early in the game and since no one was in the penalty the result is the same as if you had called the foul (it's not because the player and team do not get fouls counted against them which could make a difference further along in the game), then how are players and coaches supposed to know how a certain play will be called at some other point in the game?

Even the NBA, not known for putting rules adherence before entertainment, eliminated their "force out" rule (which uses the same basic principle as stated in the example) because they realized that there either is or isn't enough contact for a foul. If there is, call it. If not, make the correct OOB call. Period.I believe in this example, the author has transposed game management with game manipulation.

Officials take enough heat for not "being consistent" in our calls as it is. Call the same play the same way from opening whistle to closing horn. That's our job.

I agree Mark.

The problem is that we call advantage/disadvantage and not level of contact. Players do not understand this and therefore we are sometimes loath to call a foul when the contact is minimal because players think the call is soft but still it causes a disadvantage and should be called.

It usually comes back to bite you in the arse if you go for the OOB.