More Madness

“Three seconds!” “Call it both ways!” “That’s a terrible call!”

These are sounds we hear night in and night out. People that didn’t pay money to watch a game and cheer their team on. They paid to yell at us. It appears to be the only thing that brings them pleasure. If their team does well, we hear, “We are gonna beat them even if the refs are terrible!” There’s no way to be good enough.

Sometimes, some of these comments are warranted here and there. Never to the amount they are spoken. And definitely NEVER to the level of angst and vitriol that is spewed. No one is that bad. No one. Not to that level of fury. It’s a game. We’re not hiding in a bunker hoping a Russian missile doesn’t strike us. We are watching a GAME.

This time of year, the entire country is putting refs under a microscope. Everything they are doing is on a national scale. You must be robotically perfect to keep yourself off of ESPN highlights. Seven or eight camera angles. Every single step they make to the right, to the left, is judged. Every call and no-call is scrutinized.

But who is it doing the judging? The people who are NOT wearing the striped shirts. The people scrutinizing every play are the ones that are sitting comfortably in their living room, at the sports bar, even in a comfortable TV studio set. The people yelling, making racial and homophobic slurs at refs are chilling behind a keyboard somewhere (Btw- yes, racial and homophobic slurs all the time).

Who are these guys you’re yelling at? Allow me to give some examples of people I personally know, without giving out any names. A minister with a wife and kids. Spends his life helping others for little to no money. A sheriff’s department officer with a family that already doesn’t see him a lot. A shift worker at an industrial warehouse who leaves and goes straight to the gym after work and gets home after his wife has gone to sleep. A current active member of the national guard. A doctor. A lawyer. A janitor. A schoolteacher. A funeral home director. Hopefully you’re beginning to get the idea. These are normal (except me, I’m not normal) people, living regular lives who have families. These people sacrifice their time with their families in order to do what they love and give back to a sport they love. Their entire job is to make sure both teams have an equal opportunity to compete. They pay money to go to camp in order to get training and conduct job interviews for college conferences. They organize flight schedules, rental cars, and open dates to ref. Even me, who is a mere minion in this game, very low man in the rankings of officials, I came home after midnight 4 times in one week. I refereed in 4 states in 4 days this season. My wife almost forgot what I looked like. And I’m a nobody. Think of the real refs.

So where am I going with all of this? You think I’m going to tell you to stop yelling at the refs? Nope. Being upset about a call is part of sports. Wanting your team to win and disliking a ref’s decision at the end of a game is part of sports. Yes, we should curb our anger and reduce our veracity after we have expressed our disapproval. Your yelling won’t change the call. So be upset and move on.

I pull up twitter and the entire feed was about how bad the refs handled the UNC vs. Baylor game. I didn’t open twitter until after the game. And I was shocked, but I shouldn’t have been. I watched that game and thought the crew did an AMAZING job on that game. The Flagrant 2 call was exactly right. It’s what has been preached to us all year. They want unnecessary contact like that out of the game. Ejections get their attention. The game had been chippy. They had a double foul and a dead ball contact technical foul as well. They tried to walk a tightrope of both staying out of the game, but penalizing directives from the NCAA and making sure both teams are playing by the same set of rules. But the comments on twitter were 100% negative about not only that game but also other games. All negative. One said, “We won’t have any refs left for the final four if they go home after doing bad because they’re all bad!” Chilling on the couch with those negative thumbs going 90mph pretending to know something about officiating basketball. Hiding behind their keyboard warrior persona saying things they’d NEVER say TO some of these guys. Some of them are jacked. Wouldn’t mess with them. But they’ll get real brave behind their iPhone.

The thing is you seem to know so much. You seem to be so good at knowing what the refs should call and not call. You seem to be the authority on how to referee high school and college basketball. So here’s my challenge, prove it. Join us. You heard me. Sign up and join us to referee. If we are so bad at it, please, come show us how it is done. Show us the way, Jedi Ref. If you can spew vile things about a ref that is that bad, in your eyes, then get on the court and show him how it’s done, please. We need help. We can’t do it without you! If you refuse to, then stay off twitter and shut up. Say your peace at games and move on. Cheer your team on. They need you. The refs don’t. Unless you can show us how to ref, then by all means, sign up and let’s do this. So you can know why we laugh when people say, “over the back!”

Stay Classy GP!  

Grainger