TSSAA REFEREES

[twhoops]

You bone heads are missing the point. There are no other referees. I repeat, there are no other referees. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? As I said before, it is not hard to become a referee, they are looking for good quality know it alls every day. It pays $70 a night to never be right, who wouldn't want to sign up.

 

And by the way I'm not a referee.

 

I'm a coach, and referees affect coaching a heck of alot more than they do the fans.

[Guesswho?]

Amen brother. I don't call TSSAA basketball, but I do officiate football and baseball. The guys that are out there are usually there for one of two reasons:

 

I thought they were out there for one reason.... extra money in there pocket. I've umpired baseball games and thats why I was out there

[sls]

TW as you know the ones doing most of the complaining are the ones who know the least. I truely believe if a person went out and officiated for a while, a little more respect would be given for this profession. Most of the officials do a good job. I must admit there are a few I personally do not agree with sometimes. That is still no reason to bash anyone every game. They are human and will make mistakes, just like all of the bashers.

I think I had rather have it the way it is than to take a TV timeout every call and watch replay.

[sportiemom]

Talk about missing the point! I have Ref'ed. It is not a hard job. All you have to do is call what you see and be neutral when you step on the floor. Even the worst refs don't get fussed at if they call it bad both ways. Also if you are paying attention to the game you will not hear what the fans are saying. The Refs are making $32.50 and up an hour. That is 3 hours of work for any other professional. If at any other job that paid that much you messed up 5 - 10% of the time your butt would be on the welfare line. This is not about them being human and missing calls. This is about them looking straight at a foul or walk and not calling it because they are either for the other team or they are trying to run the clock out to get there money and go. Like keeping score said, "It is no skin off their nose if they make a crappy call" Until you are being held accountable for a bad job you are going to have to take heat. Again "IT IS NOT FAIR TO THESE BOYS AND GIRLS THAT ARE BUSTING THERE TAILS AND PLAYING HARD, FOR A REF TO TAKE IT AWAY FROM THEM BECAUSE HE/SHE IS OUT OF SHAPE AND CAN'T GET DOWN THE COURT, HE /SHE LIKES THE OTHER TEAM BETTER, OR HE/SHE HAS SOMEWHERE ELSE TO BE AND DON'T WANT TO STOP THE CLOCK "

If there is a lack of Refs then you need to do a better recruiting job.

Edited February 11, 2004 by sportiemom

[CoachTom]

I agree with the posts that ask for effort from officials. It is very easy to forgive a mistake if the official is in the proper position and is at least hustling to TRY to make the best call they can. Hey, people are going to make mistakes, anyone with intelligence will admit to that, the thing I think really bothers people the most is when you see an official blow a call because they were not in the proper position and they don't even seem concerned by it. Another thing, when a coach wants to talk to an official watch the next time you are at a game, the good ones will come over and at least talk with a coach, the bad ones hide behind their whistle and the fact that if a coach gets a technical they have to sit for the rest of the game and two costs them money. Where is the justice behind that? If an official blows two calls shouldn't that cost them money?!

[luvsbball]

Preach on sportiemom. You hit the nail on the head with that last post. It won't do any good but it feels good to get it off your chest doesn't it?

[paintwatcher]

That's the most ignorant statement I've ever heard. $32.50 an hour. I refereed basketball and umpired baseball and softball for four years. Your forgetting to take into account the fact of driving 2 hours to some school off the face of the world. Gas is expensive. So you referee for 3 hours and drive usually an average of 2 hours. So you probably make an average of $15 an hour. Which isn't getting overpaid. Someone said earlier a fat paycheck. Referees in Indiana make twice what TSSAA officials do. Yes the quality of referees isn't getting better. I saw a guy call a 5 sec. closely guarded in the backcourt and wouldn't change his call, and he knew he was wrong. But don't blame the supervisors, they have no one to pick from. You have to send someone to wear the stripes. And there are just too many games and not enough quality officials. Get used to it because it will be worse next year when all games become mandatory 3 man crews. They will have to pick up hitch hikers off the side of the road to call games. So either quit complaining, or get a whistle and change the basketball world for the better.

[bigwes68]

Talk about missing the point! I have Ref'ed. It is not a hard job. All you have to do is call what you see and be neutral when you step on the floor. Even the worst refs don't get fussed at if they call it bad both ways. Also if you are paying attention to the game you will not hear what the fans are saying. The Refs are making $32.50 and up an hour. That is 3 hours of work for any other professional. If at any other job that paid that much you messed up 5 - 10% of the time your butt would be on the welfare line. This is not about them being human and missing calls. This is about them looking straight at a foul or walk and not calling it because they are either for the other team or they are trying to run the clock out to get there money and go. Like keeping score said, "It is no skin off their nose if they make a crappy call" Until you are being held accountable for a bad job you are going to have to take heat. Again "IT IS NOT FAIR TO THESE BOYS AND GIRLS THAT ARE BUSTING THERE TAILS AND PLAYING HARD, FOR A REF TO TAKE IT AWAY FROM THEM BECAUSE HE/SHE IS OUT OF SHAPE AND CAN'T GET DOWN THE COURT, HE /SHE LIKES THE OTHER TEAM BETTER, OR HE/SHE HAS SOMEWHERE ELSE TO BE AND DON'T WANT TO STOP THE CLOCK "

If there is a lack of Refs then you need to do a better recruiting job.

 

Major holes in sportiemom's argument:

 

1) What have you officiated, church league? No, that's probably not a hard job. But calling a high school game with the kind of pressure put on them by fans like you is a very difficult job.

 

2) The refs that call it bad both ways get fussed at by both teams and their fans.

 

3) Yes, high school officials make pretty decent money. But most of them also have to travel -- sometimes over an hour each way -- to call the game. This is in addition to their regular job, which they oftentimes have to leave early, and it makes for some very late nights getting home. Extra money in the pocket is one reason people get into officiating, but they wouldn't be doing it at all if they didn't love the game.

 

4) Let me say this again: officials are human and they will miss calls. Let me also say this again: basketball is by far the most difficult sport to officiate. Now I know there are some officials that are biased for or against a particular team. It's pretty well known that the high school I played for has a tremendous bias against it, and it starts with the assigning officer of the local officials' association. But not every single official is biased. Once again, if you think there are bad officials, get out there and do it yourself, since you could do such a better job. Since the money is so good and it's not a hard job, what's stopping you?

 

5) If an official has a game that has gotten out of hand (meaning one team is up by a very large margin, say 20 points or so in the 4th quarter and all the scrubs are in the game), no one wants to see the game take any longer than it has to. That's why a lot of officials let stuff go. If an official called every single by-the-book foul that happened in a game, every single game would take well over 2 hours, and it would make for some 11:00 nights getting out of there, which could translate to getting home at 1 or 2 in the morning for some teams and the kids still having to get up and go to school the next day. No one wants that. So contrary to what you believe, many officials do have the kids in mind.

 

6) Officials ARE held accountable, contrary to popular belief. There are supervisors at games every night evaluating officials. There simply aren't enough supervisors to go around and critique every official, every night. If officials blow several calls, or have lousy mechanics, or let the crowd get to them, the supervisor will see to it that they get assigned to fewer varsity games.

 

7) It's pretty hard to do a better recruiting job when potential recruits know there are completely unreasonable fans like you out there that are going to taunt, maim and criticize them mercilessly.

[aj1133]

Last night I watched both girls and boys high school basketball games. The girls game got a little out of hand and one team started to pull away big but the officiating was just real lame. Foul calls, walk calls, and violations of any sort were overlooked in order to get the game over with. These same officials of course, ref the boys game, in which a higher profiled player was in action. These officials all of the sudden became energetic and lively. The big time player was called for a charge and the official made his way to the scores table by starting the charge call at one foul line and ended up at the three point line on the other side with such an emphatic dance, maybe a slight exaggeration. But they were using the game as a stage, much larger crowd for the boys game, to show themselves and display the authority that they have over the game. It made me feel as though the girls teams were being short changed. Anyway, I think that the officiating has been poor and for two reasons. One, they want their money to go. I actually heard an official tell a coach that they wanted to "make it quick so they could catch the end of the UT game." I also believe that there is an attitude that the officials have adopted that they simply cannot admit they are wrong. I love the official that will occasionally walk by and say "Coach I missed that one." No, it doesn't help the cause during the game, but man does it ever change the way I feel about the official at the time. Chuck Arnold is one official I can think of that is good about this, he will even lagh with you from time to time. Maybe if they just had some personality and interacted more with the coaches from BOTH teams it would seem alot less like they are putting themselves up on some sort of throne of authority. If a coach asks a legitimate question to an official why is it that most tend to immediately think that the coach is picking on them. They should get the chip off of their shoulder.

[0u812]

Go back to 2 officials then for every 3 games you would have 2 extra officials. Now there would not be a shortage of officials. There has been in the past , now, and will always be unhappy fans with officiating. But I think you multiplied the problems when you put more officials ( 3 instead of 2 ) on the court! But this is an endless debt that won't ever get settled until there is a system for grading the official. Here is a suggestion, pay the better officials more and the bad officials less and let them work their way up or down the pay scale.

[paintwatcher]

Good idea! However, who should do this grading?

[aj1133]

I like the pay scale idea but whoever involved with the negotiations of this for the officials would have to set a minimum, otherwise some of the officials might have to pay to officiate. Just kidding! I realize that officiating is not easy and that is why I want no part of it.