Tuesday, July 24, 2007

THIS IS NOT GOOD

Posted by Reverend Ref + at 9:11 AM

If you follow sports at all, you'll no doubt have heard about Tim Donaghy. As a refresher, he's the NBA ref accused of working with the mob in a point-shaving scheme. You can read about it here, as well as follow multiple links to more stories.

This is not good.

It's not good for Tim. It's not good for his family. It's not good for the NBA. And it's not good for officials in general.

One of the things officials (in my experience) are fanatic about is their integrity. We do what we do because we love the game. We do what we do because, as one official said, "Without us, it's chaos." We do what we do because we enjoy participating in good games. To be a part of a great game, to see two teams work to overcome adversity, to see the "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" up close and to know that you were part of that experience is something grand.

We work hard to avoid even the appearance of conflicts of interest.

When I was back in Spokane, you were not allowed to work a varsity game involving a school that you had contact with (job, spouse, child, etc), and you NEVER worked a game if your kid was on the team. When I started officiating games here, I told them that I would not work varsity games for Sheridan. We just avoid that stuff.

One time I flagged a coach 15 yards for asking me, "How much are they paying you?"

And now this. People already dislike the refs.

I'm wondering how much damage control we all will have to do in our respective sports.

Labels: ,

2 comments:

EYouthWNY | 2:11 PM, July 24, 2007  

The only refs I've ever had a problem with were ones that carried themselves arrogantly. I still play a little league indoor soccer and every once in a while I'd just like an explanation for WHY I got called! Not because I want to argue but because I want to know what they saw (or think they saw, lol!).

The best education for any player is to have to ref a few games themselves even if it's a different sport than your own.

Give you a whole new view fo things.
JP

Dawgdays | 3:44 PM, July 24, 2007  

As a fellow official, I agree that integrity is THE key attribute that we bring to the game. I have seen plenty of officials who are good, and not-so-good, at calling a game, but they all did it with integrity, even if they were lacking in skill.

Unlike Ref+, I used to umpire my son's baseball games. But that ended once he reached a competitive level. I continued to work for the league, but avoided games in my son's age group.

Because of the alleged lack of integrity, I find the actions that Donaghy is accused of to be, in a word, disgusting.

I was encouraged by Stern's press conference. I perceive that he's trying to do the right thing, for Donaghy, the other officials, the NBA, and sport in general. I only hope it works out that way.

Post a Comment

First time comments will be moderated.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)