Advertisement

The Most Oblivious Ref In The Universe Had A Legendary Performance On The Hardwood

I am very torn on the criticism of referees. For 1 - as a guy who's donned the stripes at lower levels and high school- it's actually astounding how many people don't know the rules. Forget casual fans, I'm talking people who actually played the game.I once had a game where a guy was screaming about 10 second violation. The situation was his team pressed and did force the count to about 7-8. Then his team stole the ball clearly and possessed it for 2-3 seconds before turning it over again. He started screaming that had to be 10 seconds. I said "hey coach maybe let's just argue the hard ones, that's not even close." He got a little hot, we smoothed it over at the end of the game and moved on no problems. 

I didn't think about it until 4 months later when I was reffing a summer league at the park. That coach with the 10 second snafu was watching the game as a fan. I noticed my dad late in the game taking a walk in the park and stop by the courts and start talking to him. After the game I asked my dad how he knew the guy. He said "Oh he was a great player back in the day at a school in Brooklyn, knew some friends that played with him." I was amazed that a guy who actually played the game and was a good athlete just had absolutely ZERO clue about 10 seconds. 

I also one time had the all time leading women's scorer at the local college tell me the 7th foul OF THE GAME... NOT THE HALF meant a team was in the bonus. I got even more mad when I asked the scorekeeper after the game how she could have asked me such a wild question when we had no issues in the first 3 games of her doing the scorebook. She sheepishly shrugged and said "She told me to do it." All time joke behavior.

So if people like that has no clue about the rules, imagine what a casual moron parent knows. Now imagine being a referee for a youth game and barely getting $35 and potentially getting punched in the face by one of these lunatics who knows zero. So I'm on the side of people taking it easy on the refs in amateur games. Frank Martin had a great rant on that. 

Now on the other hand, I have a very very very STRONG opinion on referees who violate a certain code in my eyes. For example, if you walked into work in an office one day and said "I'm having a problem with my car anyone know anything about cars? " And Joe from accounting says "Yeah I do just give me $50 and I'll fix it no problem." And Joe knows absolutely ZERO and keeps the money, I have a problem with that. The same way I have a problem with a youth ref not being able to run. I'm not asking to nail every block charge, or be impeccable. But some things have to happen in my eyes, and one of them is being to run. There's unfortunately a ton of guys who can't run which leads to being out of position and is just straight up unfair to the players. That's my biggest pet peeve. 

Had to rant on that one. 

Now, onto this guy. Another one of the real basic requirements I ask for in refs, and again I am not hard on amateur refs having done it myself, is awareness. NOTHING is worse that watching a game and a guy is begging for a timeout and the ref says "I didn't see it." NO !!!!! Your job is one to see it, but also expect that someone is going to call a timeout. If a team is struggling to break a press and the count starts getting late in a tight game ... what the hell do you think a team is going to do? Call timeout. It's your job as a ref to look to the coach EXPECTING them to call a timeout. 

This is an absolutely bizarre situation because it doesn't even look like this woman's team is struggling that bad, yet this guy straight up ignores her. I mean you have to try to ignore someone yelling timeout in your ear like this. It almost makes me think he had a gripe with her. Does she work at the restaurant in town and screw up his order? Does she not tip well at the place he bartends? Like something doesn't add up here. The woman is SCREAMING timeout in his ear. What gives? I need more on this ref. Need all his games on tape for the hilarity. What a wild sequence. 

Advertisement

Final thought … all that stuff I said about being calm to amateur refs is true … but college refs makes $1500 on lower conference games , $2500 on mid majors and up to $3700 A GAME for power conference games. They are pro's so yell as much as you like….  I will too.