Can't beat bad officiating

[Dignon003]

Sloppy. Commenting on a thread he hasn't even read. I don't mind OSU fans showing up when they actually want to discuss things, but lazy insult posts that have already been covered? Come on. Let's make sure that doesn't happen again, Dignon003.

Didn't see it. I'll be sure to comb the threads more thoroughly before joking with another poster.

 

[AdaSooner]

I would ask AdaSooner or some of the other posters that have officiated, if they were ever intimidated into calls either intentionally or unintentionally. I'm sure that most good refs are never intentionally influenced. But from someone that has been there, what is it like to referee in a hostile environment?

I would like to think that I was never intimidated or influenced by the home crowd in any game I called. That didn't make me too popular with some of the coaches and school officials I officiated for over the years. But those who really wanted to see their games called fairly, never objected to the way I presented myself as an official. I was asked back year after year by most schools. There were also a few who never called me again.

I can tell you from experience, though, it's almost impossible to walk out of the gym after every outing and feel that you didn't blow a call or two. I have a high regard for basketball officials, because I know how difficult it is to get every call right. Basketball is a lot tougher to officiate than football, another sport I dabbled in back in the day. If a violation occurs in basketball, officials have no more than a nanosecond to decide what they saw, blow the whistle and than "sell the call."

Do officials know when they miss a call? The goods ones do. The bad officials are in denial. There's not a basketball official alive who doesn't miss a call on occasion. It's not intentional when the goods ones do it. But it does happen.