I went and watched 4 High school basketball games today and tonight.
I never realized just how pathetic officiating is! Why allow walking, talking trash for a complete game and grabbing!
Then at the end of the game you’ve allowed a team to trash talk a girl and she takes it all night long with a smile and finally with seconds remaining after she gets to the rim makes a shot get fouled and gets trashed talked too again you T that girl up and it’s her 4Th foul.
Her team had a 2 point lead when she went to the free throw line. The game went to OT. She scored over 30 points and fouled out in OT.
I’m not being bias I don’t have a kid playing in the district tournament!
I sure hope there’s some folks out there some where that know how to call games. These fools I watched today sure do a poor job.
For what they get paid it’s hard to believe any human being would take the cash and be able to sleep.
I was told they ref’s today got $150 each per game. They were worth a nickel.
know at one time Ernie Murray was calling high school games…most are still learning and are suspectable to parental influences
Nationwide the number of officials is declining…not defending the poor job done, but would encourage all to consider joining the officials ranks.
At the current rate of decline, more schools will be playing on Thursday nights due to lack of football officials.
I’ve called a lot of baseball and basketball games before my health got bad and I never just say back and watched like I did yesterday. The parents in the stands were pretty calm!
The gripping I heard came from people like me and few others that were ya king about how bad it has become.
I saw a dad at my 12 year old grandsons AAU game come out of the stands screening at the ref. Out of control big time. Threatening the ref. When the ref threw him out he ran down and got into the refs face. He had to be escorted out of the gym. It’s sad. I would never ref.
It a two fold problem. The officiating is really sorry! A lot of parents are out of control but where is the effort from the AAA to actually attempt to make it better. A couple of years ago in Vilonia
A Ref hit a coach. I. Front of kids 6 to 12 years old. It took several of the older folks to break it up! The younger folks were just going to watch.
No one cares about anything being done right
I saw Colby Berna reffing a game on Championship Saturday in Hot Springs a few years ago. I doubt many wacko dads or coaches get in his face.
I am very ashamed to say that I was a complete ass toward officials when my son played basketball and my daughter volleyball.
I wish I could go back and apologize to every one of them
I’ve had my moments over the years. Strangely I mellowed considerably when my kids got to high school. It was in their youth days that I really lashed out at those poor refs.
Most of the referees/umpires that did the games of my kids in Fayetteville knew who I was.
I was aware of that, but was also never one who yelled at games anyway.
I have always respected those who ref/umpire because it is simply a no-win situation.
My tact was to go up to the refs/umpires during an inning or quarter break, start a conversation and tuen drop in how I greatly respected what they did for a living.
But also point out that the strike zone seemed a bit narrow or wide.
When my step son was wrestling, I did the same and told a ref that I knew it was tough job, but he missed a call at the state tournament.
He said ‘no I did not, Dudley.’
I then showed him the replay on my Ipad.
He an Bennett’s opponent both then apologized to him, who because of that call finished second instead of winning it all.
As disappointed as I was for Bennett, the ref and the foe both earned by respect for the way they handled things.
People probably get tired of me taking up for officials.
However, I officiated 10 years at the high school level. The last 2-3 years, I called in the highest level and was selected to work State Tournaments. I quit because it wasn’t worth the trouble of being away from my family and it was conflicting with my real job.
It is not as easy as it looks. They don’t get slow motion replays from multiple angles. Things happen in split seconds and they don’t always see everything perfectly.
As I once heard Walt Coleman say, “The biggest problem with officials is, they are human.” Players make mistakes, coaches make mistakes, sportswriters make mistakes (Right, Clay?). Shouldn’t officials be allowed to miss something occasionally.
As for you that continually think officials are intentionally missing things to harm the Razorbacks, I feel sorry for you.
I too officiated and had to give it up due to family and job. It got to the point that I could not tell a coach or AD I could be there on a given night some weeks ahead.
I really enjoyed doing it, and I felt terrible when I realized I had made a bad call. Never tried to do a makeup, but just tried to redouble my efforts to do better. It is a very difficult job. Really, it is an impossible job. I still would encourage any of you younger people (certainly men or women) to get into it if you feel the calling.
One thing I did learn and have others agree that the officiating job will normally parallel the play on the floor. A well played game will normally be officiated well.
I listened to a long time high school official on talk radio last week . He stated the problem is two fold. One ,the pay of $150 is not enough. That in many cases is 3 games. Second, the lack of crowd control by the school administrators when fans get way out of hand verbally and sometimes physically. The AAA has a major problem moving forward recruiting and keeping qualified officials. Walt Coleman on radio recently said your driving a long way to pick up $150 laying on the field , or on the court, you get home late , and you put up with some of the most uncivil individuals you could imagine all the while trying to help young athletes compete within the rules of a game they supposedly love. It’s not getting any better.
Conway High’s AD recently tweeted that it is getting more and more difficult to hire good, experienced officials because they are quitting due to horrible treatment of them from “parents who have never, one time officiated.”
Walking out of my granddaughters 8 year old basketball game Saturday I heard a dad say very loud “sorry son, you would not have lost if the official called the game right”. I stoped in my tracks and out of the corner of my eye I saw the teenage girl who called the game. She stopped looked his way and shook her head. I see this stuff a lot. And we wonder why some kids act out at games and in life. I wanted to hug the kid. And kick the dad in the (rear end).
I have only officiated for intramurals. when I was in grad school, I sold my plasma for money (you can donate plasma every 7 days, huge needle, takes 2 hours and you freeze to death, but it paid $20-$20-$30, way more than they paid for whole blood). And I ran our intramurals for years, chalking the football field, setting up volleyball and basketball, officiating for all 3.
I hated freezing while a huge needle was in my arm, but I could study while I did it. It was a hassle setting up brackets, matchups, preparing fields and courts, but no big deal.
But man, oh man, did I hate officiating. when you are the only official, or if I was lucky, a second person would help, trying to watch 10 unskilled basketball players, all of whom think they are Jordan, it is just impossible. even simple stuff like “were both those feet behind the 3 point line?”, much less 2 guys pounding each other in the paint, like I can tell who committed the bigger felony jus then. And, man, would they dog-cuss me, non-stop.
these were my classmates! folks a year above and behind me! If I hadn’t been so desperately broke, I would have quit that crap after the first game. or during the first game.
Long-winded way of saying, give the hs refs a break. it’s really really a hard job.
GHG
I was a line judge on a high school football crew back in the nineties (my brother-in-law was a white hat and ran a crew for well over 20 years) and there were many games where we had to run, sprint in fact, with the local police to the car. Didn’t even take time to shower and change… it’s a hard job for sure and you’re going to miss some stuff. I really enjoyed doing it and if I’d not had to move for work would have done it for many years.
I’ve never officially officiated a basketball game other than some adult league stuff many years ago… we never called charging and were upfront about it so hopefully there wouldn’t be any injuries trying to draw them. I hated officiating basketball… love to play but didn’t enjoy it.
No way I could do it. Especially in my younger years. My temperament then would have got me ejected, lol (By myself). Probably would have been well known as the ref that gets ejected.
I remember one game at a larger HS. I was a new level 5 doing mostly Jr high and 7th grade games. I had a friend I was in Army Reserve with that was a level 2. He did all the big games all over. One afternoon he called me and said his partner could not make it to a big HS game. He said you are ready. Just follow me and I will take care of everything. So I loaded in with him and away we went. Only then did I learn where. The home coach was a well known ahole who tried to work the officials hard. He said don’t worry about it. Just call the game as you see it.
When we got to the school, he said lets go see the Superintendent. I just followed along. The guy asked what we needed and my friend said paid and he did. We walked on the court and Ahole came up. My friend showed him the check and told him that if he left the bench area, we were going home after awarding the game to the visitors (don’t think we could do that).
The coach went to his bench and coached his team as did the other coach. It was a really well played big game that was close. Don’t remember who won which is good for an official. Does not matter the score or any of that, just the game and players.
I had the time of my life that night! Never got to work another game like that as I had to give it up for work even though that lead official asked me to stay and work more games with him. Often wondered what would have been. Oh yes, I was only a few years older than the players in that game, but they respected me (you can tell).
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