SEC suspends Fla.-Ark. officials

[voiceoflg]

SEC suspends officiating crew from Florida-Arkansas game -- OrlandoSentinel.com

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The Southeastern Conference has suspended officials from last weekend's Arkansas-Florida game after the crew was involved in its second controversial call of the year.

Referee Marc Curles' crew called a personal foul on Arkansas defensive lineman Malcolm Sheppard in the fourth quarter as the Gators were rallying for a 23-20 victory. The league said there was no video evidence to support the call.

The same group of officials called the LSU-Georgia game earlier this month, which included a late unsportsmanlike conduct penalty the league said shouldn't have been called.

"A series of calls that have occurred during the last several weeks have not been to the standard that we expect from our officiating crews," SEC commissioner Mike Slive said Wednesday. "I believe our officiating program is the best in the country. However, there are times when these actions must be taken."

SEC associate commissioner Charles Bloom said this is the first time the league has publicly suspended a football crew like this.

The SEC says the crew will be removed from its next scheduled assignment Oct. 31 and will not be assigned to officiate as a crew until Nov. 14.

Not sure I agree with that.

[InsideTheStripe]

That was about as dreadful of a call as I've seen (nice dive by 76, though). If the first one was anything like that, I've got no problem with it.

How did the U (who was 8 feet away and looking at the contact) not come in and bail out Curles?

[Nevadaref]

Updated: October 22, 2009, 2:58 AM ET
Crew removed from Oct. 31 game

Associated Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The Southeastern Conference has suspended officials from last weekend's Arkansas-Florida game after the crew was involved in its second controversial call of the year.
Referee Marc Curles' crew called a personal foul on Arkansas defensive lineman Malcolm Sheppard in the fourth quarter as the Gators were rallying for a 23-20 victory. The league said there was no video evidence to support the call.

The same group of officials called the LSU-Georgia game earlier this month, which included a late unsportsmanlike conduct penalty the league said shouldn't have been called.
"A series of calls that have occurred during the last several weeks have not been to the standard that we expect from our officiating crews," SEC commissioner Mike Slive said Wednesday. "I believe our officiating program is the best in the country. However, there are times when these actions must be taken."
SEC associate commissioner Charles Bloom said this is the first time the league has publicly suspended a football crew like this.
The SEC says the crew will be removed from its next scheduled assignment Oct. 31 and will not be assigned to officiate as a crew until Nov. 14.
The league said the crew's bowl assignments could also be impacted.
"The entire crew shoulders responsibility for each play. I have taken this action because there must be accountability in our officiating program," Slive said. "Our institutions expect the highest level of officiating in all of our sports and it is the duty of the conference office to uphold that expectation."
Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino said in a statement: "We took the appropriate steps to address any issues we had with the league regarding this matter earlier in the week. Our focus as a football team has been and remains on this weekend's game against Ole Miss."

Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press


==================================

[Nevadaref]

Officials in any sport can learn a great deal from the comments of Mr. Curles in this article.

==========================================


Originally Published: October 21, 2009
SEC ref: 'I know I made a mistake'

Marc Curles, who blew the call in the Arkansas-Florida game, owns up to the boo-boo.

By Mike Fish
ESPN.com


The passionate Arkansas Razorbacks faithful and vocal Gator haters won't let up about his call. They've dialed his home and office phones. They've blitzed him with inflammatory e-mail messages. They've accused him of being a crooked ref, a gambler, some even suggesting the bigwigs back at the Southeastern Conference office were behind the controversial fourth-quarter calls -- particularly his fourth-quarter call -- that factored into Arkansas' 23-20 loss at No. 1 Florida on Saturday.

Marc Curles, the SEC ref who makes his living as a Birmingham, Ala.-based financial planner, would laugh it all off, all the abuse … if he didn't hurt so much.

On the other end of the phone line Wednesday, Curles sounds like a man in serious pain. Yet, there is no dodging and weaving. No abrupt hang-up or litany of well-rehearsed excuses. Instead, the Georgia Tech grad readily concedes he screwed up and says no one will be harder on him than Curles is on himself.

"I understand people are passionate about their teams," Curles says softly. "Like I said, we sign up for this. I admit I made a mistake in this ballgame. I deserve a little bit of people getting on me. I am getting on myself.

"From a personal viewpoint, I don't need to hear what folks say, because I know if I made a mistake. And no one feels worse than I do. I have to evaluate myself. We are our own worst critics at times. All the media, the message boards and things like that, I honestly don't listen to them too much. Just don't listen to them, don't read them."

The SEC officiating crew that Curles heads up has been on the hot seat since a controversial excessive celebration call three weeks ago late in the LSU-Georgia game, a flag thrown by the back judge that the conference office later said wasn't warranted. Then Saturday, Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino left Gainesville livid about a handful of controversial calls and no-calls that seemed to favor the Gators.

Most perplexing was a 10-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against Arkansas defensive lineman Malcolm Sheppard that helped fuel Florida's game-tying drive in the fourth quarter. That flag came from Curles' pocket.

Again, as in the LSU-Georgia game, the SEC office came forward and admitted a mistake had been made. In a statement released early this week, the league said it had found no video evidence to support the personal foul penalty.
Late Wednesday afternoon, the SEC removed Curles' crew from its next assignment on Oct. 31. It won't officiate another game until Nov. 14, and the series of questionable calls might have an impact on the crew's eligibility for postseason bowl assignments, according to a league statement.
"A series of calls that have occurred during the last several weeks have not been to the standard that we expect from our officiating crews," SEC commissioner Mike Slive said in the statement. "I believe our officiating program is the best in the country; however, there are times when these actions must be taken. … While only a few calls have been identified, the entire crew shoulders responsibility for each play. I have taken this action because there must be accountability in our officiating program. Our institutions expect the highest level of officiating in all of our sports and it is the duty of the conference office to uphold that expectation."
This weekend, Curles, a father of two, will be at home with his daughters. Curles says it is a regularly scheduled off week for his crew. The conference has eight officiating crews, and each gets breaks during the season. Crews typically stay intact during the season, but substitutions are made in cases where a crew member attended one of the universities he's been assigned to officiate.

Curles caught a glimpse of his bonehead call Saturday night when he reviewed a tape of key plays from the game.
"Quite frankly, I knew that I had made a mistake," he says of what he saw on tape.
What he had seen on the field only a few hours earlier, in front of a national TV audience and 90,000-plus packed into The Swamp for Florida's homecoming, was quite different.

"I saw out of the corner of my eye -- the play went over near the sideline," Curles recalls. "I'm trailing the play, moving in that direction. And out of the corner of my eye, I see a vicious blow, and I see the Florida player go flying down 20 yards behind the play. And in my mind, the Arkansas guy had blindsided him and knocked the player that was completely out of the play, which would have been a personal foul. Obviously, that isn't what happened. Where I made the mistake is I didn't see the whole thing. I didn't see how it developed. I saw out of the corner of my eye what I thought was a foul. I can't think something is a foul. I got to know it is. And that was my mistake. And I know better than that. What makes me mad at myself is that I know better than to call something if I didn't see the whole thing. And I've been sick about it ever since, quite frankly.

"I've just been thinking about it, replaying it and beating [myself] up over the call. I guess where our true character is found is in how we handle it and what we do the next time. Are we able to recover from it? We try to find a lesson to learn in every game -- me individually and as a crew. Could somebody else have seen something and come to me and said, 'Wait a minute, I saw that happen, and this is what it looked like to me'? That didn't happen, but this is a way for us to talk about it as a crew."

Petrino complained about several calls in a conversation Monday with SEC supervisor of officials Rogers Redding. On Wednesday, Petrino declined comment on Curles' admission and version of his call, saying through a spokesman that he was busy preparing his team for Saturday's game against Mississippi. Redding didn't respond to a phone message Wednesday.

Curles isn't searching for excuses, although he acknowledges he had nowhere to turn in making his split-second judgment. No one on his crew, apparently, had a different or better view of the play; or if someone did, he didn't speak up. And the play wasn't reviewable, so he couldn't join the TV talking heads and millions of viewers in seeing the error.

"They really judge us on our whole body of work," Curles says about the league's review process. "I've been in the conference five years. One call does not determine whether somebody is a good official or not. Unfortunately, we're human. The expectation from the general public, and quite frankly ourselves, is we're perfect every game. We want to get it perfect. But we're human, and it doesn't always happen. We make mistakes."

Officiating is a seasonal gig, but Curles says he and other officials put time and effort into the job, most of it rehashing previous games and learning from mistakes. Not only did his crew watch video snippets Saturday night of the Arkansas-Florida game, but -- as is the case every Sunday -- Curles and the seven other SEC referees participated in a conference call with their boss. He'll review the Arkansas-Florida game again with his crew the Friday night before their next game.

Curles says he'll apologize for his mistake and its negative reflection on the crew during that meeting. Unlike the rabid fans, they'll no doubt understand that he's human and, like all of us, prone to error from time to time.

"I have gotten 50 or 60 e-mails just in the last two to three days," he says. "At work. I had about a half-dozen voice messages on my home phone when I got home Sunday. I have gotten phone calls [at work]. People are passionate about their teams, and I understand that. We kind of know what we are getting into when we do this. But some of things they say -- think about what you are saying. Saying I should be investigated for gambling. Saying I should be ashamed of myself. Saying the conference is pulling the strings.
"If people could just understand there is a human element to it. Hey, I am trying my dead-level best. I am getting e-mail from folks accusing me of being on the take, all this kind of thing. We are absolutely trying to get it perfect every time. And nobody feels worse than we do when it doesn't happen."

[ajmc]

I can't imagine any official being thrown further, or harder, under the bus than, ""A series of calls that have occurred during the last several weeks have not been to the standard that we expect from our officiating crews," SEC commissioner Mike Slive said Wednesday. "I believe our officiating program is the best in the country. However, there are times when these actions must be taken.".

OK, the Referee acknowledges that he made a processing mistake responding to a contact he reacted to, rather than observing in it's entirely. We all know we're supposed to see the entire action, but there's not an official, whos's worked more than 2 games in his career who hasn't made this error, to some degree.

Was the SEC correct in reviewing the call, Yes. Correct in correcting the official, Yes. Disciplining the crew, that's their judgment call. Issuing a press release that suggests only two possibilities; this official is either dishonest and biased or consistently incompetent. Totally unnecessary and counterproductive. If commissioned Silve thinks this "confession" enhances his organization he's a misguided as anyone who gratuitously apologizes for not being consistently perfect, where attaining perfection is, at best, an illusion.

Is there any benefit, this public exposure accomplishes that wasn't totally accomplished by whatever review and corrective action taken between the SEC and the Referee in private.

You never raise your own image by trashing those who work for you when they've made a mistake. If commissioner Silve believes what he suggests about the Referee, he had the power to do whtever he felt necessary. Stripping him naked and throwing him out into the public area, doesn't do any good for either him, or the SEC.

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

"I saw out of the corner of my eye -- the play went over near the sideline," Curles recalls. "I'm trailing the play, moving in that direction. And out of the corner of my eye, I see a vicious blow, and I see the Florida player go flying down 20 yards behind the play. And in my mind, the Arkansas guy had blindsided him and knocked the player that was completely out of the play, which would have been a personal foul. Obviously, that isn't what happened. Where I made the mistake is I didn't see the whole thing. I didn't see how it developed. I saw out of the corner of my eye what I thought was a foul. I can't think something is a foul. I got to know it is. And that was my mistake. And I know better than that. What makes me mad at myself is that I know better than to call something if I didn't see the whole thing. And I've been sick about it ever since, quite frankly.

I had a white hat once whose mantra was "Call what you see, see what you call." He would repeat it everytime we gathered at midfield before breaking out to our kickoff positions, both halves, every game. Even would repeat it just before we left the locker room. I even repeat to my current crew, and get smiles from half of them because we worked under that particular white hat. I've lived by that mantra ever since he said it the first time, and not just in football, but my other sports as well. Curles is saying the same thing, albeit not verbatim, in his quote above (the bolded part).

Originally Posted by ajmc

I can't imagine any official being thrown further, or harder, under the bus than, ""A series of calls that have occurred during the last several weeks have not been to the standard that we expect from our officiating crews," SEC commissioner Mike Slive said Wednesday. "I believe our officiating program is the best in the country. However, there are times when these actions must be taken.".

OK, the Referee acknowledges that he made a processing mistake responding to a contact he reacted to, rather than observing in it's entirely. We all know we're supposed to see the entire action, but there's not an official, whos's worked more than 2 games in his career who hasn't made this error, to some degree.

Was the SEC correct in reviewing the call, Yes. Correct in correcting the official, Yes. Disciplining the crew, that's their judgment call. Issuing a press release that suggests only two possibilities; this official is either dishonest and biased or consistently incompetent. Totally unnecessary and counterproductive. If commissioned Silve thinks this "confession" enhances his organization he's a misguided as anyone who gratuitously apologizes for not being consistently perfect, where attaining perfection is, at best, an illusion.

Is there any benefit, this public exposure accomplishes that wasn't totally accomplished by whatever review and corrective action taken between the SEC and the Referee in private.

You never raise your own image by trashing those who work for you when they've made a mistake. If commissioner Silve believes what he suggests about the Referee, he had the power to do whtever he felt necessary. Stripping him naked and throwing him out into the public area, doesn't do any good for either him, or the SEC.

This isn't the first time a conference commissioner has done this. The Big 8 Commissioner did the same thing to the Head Linesman in the 1990 Missouri-Colorado 5th Down game. I only remember it because I know that H personally, and had to shut my fellow students up (I was a sophomore in college) when they chanted "5th Down, 5th Down..." when that official showed up to do a basketball game at our school. He had this look on his face that he wanted to respond, but restrained himself.