TheWriteReferee.com

Cleveland Rocks! Ohio Day Opens At NASO

Rules, tools and tricks of the trade are the opening day highlights of the annual officiating summit hosted by the National Association of Sports Officials (NASO), which opened at the historic Renaissance Cleveland Hotel today.

The Buckeye state's corps of high school sports officials have kicked off the first state rules meeting of the year this morning. The Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) will offer rule changes and interpretations for the coming year on this Saturday before NASO'S nationally-based program starts in earnest tomorrow.

As for the tools and tricks, the official at-large can come get their kicks at the exhibitor's gallery, where 19 different vendors, including this writer's premiere client, Cliff Keen Athletic, are debuting the newest officiating updates in gear, uniforms, apparel and gadgets for the 2008-09 scholastic calender.

NASO's national program includes a professional and major college representation of the officials seen working the National Football League, National Basketball Association and NCAA officials, including Bill LeMonnier (Big Ten), Violet Palmer (WNBA), Bill Carollo (NFL) and Stephen Walkom (NHL).

More updates to come...

No Easy Decision In Overtime Tie

When I read about Orchard Lake St. Mary's and Marquette High School playing three regulation periods and a staggering eight overtimes in this past weekend's MHSAA hockey finals, I felt a sharp pain shoot through my Achilles heel, as well as sudden desire to own a two-headed coin.

The MHSAA's hockey tournament liaison, Randy Allen, along with the athletic director of each school, agreed to end the mythical game in a 1-1 tie and declare each school co-champions of the MHSAA's high school hockey finals. It's never happened before and if anyone calls Randy Allen the Bud Selig of the MHSAA, we'll have words. This was the brave and correct decision, not one born of answering to million-dollar owners.

I'm not speaking from the pulpit because I think I'm right. I've been there. So has Anton Day (who's real name is Blanton), Mike DeVuyst and the 2006 varsity baseball teams representing Birmingham Groves and Birmingham Seaholm. Reporter Marty Budner was there, too, and because of it, he won an award from the Michigan Press Association for Prep Sports Story of the Year. I wasn't at the hockey finals so I don't know how desperate the situation was as it related to lack of hydration and stamina creating a dangerous situation to continue playing. I can only relate and tell about a night at Groves High School two seasons ago, when the Falcons hosted the Maples in their annual rivalry game.

It went 15 long, hard-fought innings. There was a freshman on the bench that day for Groves named Jamey Sackett. His brother, Jay, now playing for the Alma College Scots, started at catcher. In the sixth inning, with no one out, Jay Sackett took off his shin guards and chest protector and walked 60 feet and six inches past the plate to the pitcher's mound while his brother came off the pine to catch. When you haven't played in the first five innings, getting 10 innings of work is the farthest thing from your mind. Jay Sackett's day was done as pitcher after he retired the side in the 15th -- he had recorded 30 outs in one game, the limit in a Michigan high school baseball game. A set of brothers logged 30 outs as a battery in one game. Their former teammate from summer baseball, Casey Starnes, was catching for Seaholm that day -- he logged all 15 frames, an amazing 45 outs.

So did I. I lost the coin flip. I worked the plate. I declared the game suspended due to darkness after 15 innings. I could barely see straight because I was so tired and hungry. I'll never forget the comment Mike DeVuyst, who worked 3rd base, made as we lumbered off the field. "T.C., you must have called 500 pitches today. How can you even stand up right now?" I could barely walk. My right Achilles heel was sore for three days.

Yet my exhaustion was nothing compared to the players. Four times in the last five innings, Groves stranded the winning run at 3rd base with less than two outs. Seaholm can say the same for three of the last five frames. It was getting dark. No one wanted to lose but no one was going to win, either. Another inning was going to break a tie that had been in place for three hours since the 6th inning? So  no one lost and everyone won -- it's not the worst thing that's ever happened. More importantly, no one wore a line drive or something worse in a potential 16th inning, an inning of very existence that would surely have been debated had anything dangerous or unfortunate happened.

50 years from now some reporter will stumble upon a story of the championship game in the 2008 MHSAA playoffs that went 11 periods and he or she will convince an editor that this deserves 15 column inches because a handful of the players are still alive and will convene a reunion to commemorate it.

The only co-champions in MHSAA hockey history. 50 years from now, it'll still be the right decision.   

Mr. Markowski, You're Right Again

Tom Markowski took up the cause in The Detroit News yesterday when he chastised the Hal Schram Mr. Basketball Award committee for having but just four names on the election ballot. The article, slugged "Only Four Mr. Basketball Candidates? Makes No Sense", provides great insight into something that plagues youth and amateur sports, much less professionalism in all walks of life.

Manipulation by means morally or ethically questionable. It happens in the coaching ranks, officiating corps and administrative positions.

If you're asking yourself, "There's a lot of things that could be interpreted as gray areas when it comes to morals and ethics," stop reading. This post is beyond your comprehension, because morals and ethics are as simple as black and white. It's either right or wrong. There is no gray area. Markowski scratches the surface in this regard. Has the Mr. Basketball Award been manipulated to exclude six deserving nominees in the attempt by a few to ensure that the award goes to whom they deem worthy? Don't try to tell me the state is better off today for having four nominees instead of 10. I've refereed Romeo's Blake Cushingberry several times and watched him perform in countless other games. Blake Cushingberry not being on the ballot makes about as much sense as George Bush being allowed to run for a third term as President unopposed.

But it's just the start. Today I took a call from one of the MHSAA's District Managers regarding a boys district being played in two weeks. I'm working a boys' and girls' district and in both brackets, I'm working games on Monday and Wednesday with no final. And I'm fine with that -- give me a Friday night at home for the first time in eight months -- in back-to-back weeks no less. I do admit it's a bit amusing that I get playoff games from some collegiate assignors and work in three leagues but haven't had a district final in three years at the prep level. Sadly, though, some officials with my Monday--Wednesday grid will try to 'backdoor' a manager and tell him or her that this official shouldn't be working this game, that they are the better candidate, so on and so forth. Managers panic, try to do what they think is right and best for their kids. What did they really do? Give in to the manipulation.

I've seen the state's All-Star Football Game at Spartan Stadium worked by one official who's had multiple inadvertent whistles in multiple games in the same season and get awarded with one of the annual, marquee games in the state. The same official was degrading other officials in the locker room before the game. I've watched coaches, administrators and fellow umpires hold the honor of working the East-West All-Star Game at Comerica Park, previously held at Tiger Stadium, over an umpire's head. Straight up, this is unethical manipulation of rules through power.

This is all maddening, because that's not really what these things are for. It's for the most deserving, most talented and most dedicated. It was never intended to be for the powerbrokers to handpick their people at the expense of other, deserving candidates.

Journalism 101? Don't Blame The Messenger

I received an outrageous e-mail last week. Hardly a surprise there, but the specifics surrounding the letter are substantial.

I banned someone from this site for making repeated, degrading comments about specific officials. As a response to that decision this fellow official sent me this rambling, venom-filled e-mail from a fake address without signing a name.

What was intended to make me feel bad immediately justified why fans and coaches convey so little respect to officials when some among us convey so little respect for each other.

What this letter did as a positive was make me consider the parallels in refereeing and reporting. How many of us truly understand the difference between opinion and fact, and how often do the two become blurred to create 'false truth'?  Last week's ghostwriter asked the following question, and I paraphrase for context: "Why is it that your games always seem to have a lineup controversy or ejection?" What was really being asked was a question of perception, not reality, evidence the 'always seem' portion of the question.

Here's the fact: 10 days ago I encountered only my second batting out-of-order issue in 18 years of officiating. That only means that it was the second time the question was raised by a coach, meaning it possibly happened but was missed or overlooked by the coaches or scorekeepers. No umpire has anything to do with creating lineup problems -- umpires don't write lineups and aren't required to follow the lineup -- that falls on coaches and players. The umpire is only required to deem the lineup legal prior to the game and remedy any properly-discovered infraction in accordance with the rules. You could work 100 games, have 100 batting out of order infractions within a legal lineup and not once be at fault unless your remedy is incorrect.

The second part of the writer's question concerned ejection. As a guideline, a player or coach usually ejects themselves, meaning the physical act or verbal comment obviously warrant an ejection to anyone with knowledge of the game. Tell an umpire his call was horsesh*t and as long as only the umpire and those immediately surrounding the discussion hear it, you have a chance to stay in the game. Tell the umpire he's full of sh*t, especially if many hear you say it, expect to be ejected, by rule, for making the disagreement personal.

In the 85 games worked this year, I've had seven "E-J's", otherwise known as ejections, and three came in one game, leaving four ejections in 84 games. That number times seven innings per game equals 595 innings I've worked this season between competing teams. That's nearly a 1,000 players and coaches in 595 innings. Seven ejections in 595 innings equals one ejection for every 85 innings worked. Eliminate the three-EJ game and it's one ejection per 147 innings, hardly a quick trigger. Anyone who has worked a high level of competitive, amateur baseball will tell you one ejection for every 85 innings is actually pretty good when you consider how many unpopular decisions an umpire makes and the emotional verbal and physical responses that follow some of these unpopular decisions.

The instant-media age we live in is littered with misrepresentations, false-truths and half-told stories based on a lot of things other than fact. The instantaneous comments and responses available to any unqualified goon through Internet chat boards and sports talk radio contain no reasoned merit or value. Opinion, as opposed to fact, contains a dose of jealousy, preconceived notion or personal belief, adding layer upon layer of bias to actual facts.

Until officials stop degrading fellow officials, hanging officials out to dry in whispered conversations with coaches, fans or fellow officials, we as a body of officials will fail to command any respect or dignity within the community ranks. We'll simply continue to be the object of everyone's scorn, including that which comes from within.

Put another way, it'll be business as usual.

PASS MICHIGAN HOUSE BILL 4088

I wrote last week about the effort of the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) in regards to the state association sticking up for officials collectively when an unsubstantiated claim of racial bias was made in a recent newspaper article. I still believe that to be true.

I also believe calling an attack on a sports official an isolated incident to be a false-truth. I'm talking about an attack, by a spectator or parent, against a referee or coach, that splashes the results of the game from the sports page to the front page. Calling it isolated is a false-truth.

Yes, it's isolated from the hundreds of games that are played across the state on a nightly basis that don't have a news media moment. Yet, there are many games, a number I'd be willing to place as a percentage at 10-20 percent, that have the capacity to spill over into a full-fledged news story. It's usually the experience, training and proactive decisions of officials, administrators and coaches that quell the potential problems or eliminate the threat altogether.

Michigan's Legislature is considering a bill — House Bill 4088 — that would drastically amp up the penalties for harming a participant in a sporting event, and recent attacks might kickstart the bill's ultimate passage rather than just give it space to collect dust at the taxpayer's expense.

Rare is the parent that stands up and tells another parent they're out of line. One, parents rarely want to risk alienating themselves to other parents within the community, and two, mob mentality is a common theme among parents at sporting events. Ironically, state associations go to great lengths to protect their referees but simultaneously try to distance their respective membership from gaining a tag as a repetitive stomping grounds for referee abusers.

Bottom line is you cannot count on the community at-large to police itself.

What is created by this is a reactionary process, a popular refrain of post-9/11 critics who cry foul of the mind-numbing legislation the terror attacks spawned. What's interesting about House Bill 4088 is it was written well before the highly-publicized attacks on officials in Michigan in the past 6-8 weeks. Therefore, these attacks on officials might well spawn this bill's passage instead of merely its introduction.

House Bill 4088 would make it a two-year felony for a spectator to assault an official, coach, instructor or administrator participating in any official capacity in an organized athletic competition. It was introduced late in last year's session, never made it to vote and was re-introduced this year almost immediately after the new session convened.

Currently, such behavior is a 93-day misdemeanor. Many times first time transgressors are given probation by kind-hearted judges while a referee is viewed as damaged goods to fellow coaches, assignors and administrators. I know -- I've refereed since 1988 and never had an incident past an argument -- and then had a fan run and attack me in a parking lot of a small college in northwest Indiana. Both schools posted a recap of the melee that ensued, and if you read both, you'd wonder if the two recaps were referencing the same day, schools or game. My schedule the next year was not what it had been in previous years despite being assigned that conference's championship game.

In light of a few newsworthy incidents over the past month or so in Michigan, I think the general mindset among officials regarding this bill could be summed up best in four words:

Get this bill passed. That would be the best call any referee makes all year.

The Truth

I'm a failure.

I've failed more times than I care to admit. If you try to succeed in life, you will fail, and I've failed more than I should probably have. Because of that, some want to give me a never-ending history lesson. A fellow official wrote me a letter last week detailing the times I've done something I shouldn't be proud of and how all the local Detroit assignors are mad at me, detailing specific assignors by name, apparently telling everyone but me of their displeasure with me. The letter was sent anonymously through e-mail, but the IP address is there to track him if I want to.

And he's right --  I've made some mistakes I'm not proud of. I say 'he'  because the base of knowledge the person wrote from tells me it's a male, and one from my hometown to boot. But he's right. Like all of us, I've screwed up a time or two...or three...never mind. You get the point. He talks like I should go away, hide my face and never open my door again, so to speak.

I wish I could erase my mistakes -- I really do --  but I can't. I wish I hadn't done this or that. Of course I do. If I'd only have handled this better or that differently, right? But I can't run from my mistakes. They're part of me. They're what humble me today and they're what I learn from for tomorrow.  Running from my mistakes is pointless.

I'm writing about this today because we all make mistakes in the athletic world. Fans. Coaches. Players. Referees. Administrators. There's another truth that is unyielding: If you're going to survive in this arena, you have to be willing to admit and learn from your mistakes. A blown call. A bad exchange with a coach, player or fellow official. A double-booking. A missed assignment.

If I had a dollar for every mistake I've made I wouldn't need to officiate. But if I had a dollar for every good deed I've done or all the times I've done my job the right way with no fanfare, I'd be on a beach with a little umbrella in my drink right now. I've made mistakes but I'm not going to run away because someone says I should.

Refusing to keep trying? Pretending that if I never open my door again the mistakes will go away? Never going to happen.

I might be a failure, maybe a successful failure, but I'll never be a quitter.

Helping Younger Officials

Do we do enough as veteran high school or collegiate officials in helping those coming behind us, the younger generation of officials? Is better judgment clouded by jealousy or personal ramifications at stake. These were some of the questions posed at the Metro Detroit Officials Association meeting Monday night.

I wonder how many officials feel threatened by talented but less-skilled officials with 15 years or more age in hand? I think it happens more than we care to admit as a body of officials. We do little to help our overall cause when we look out exclusively for No. 1 in that regard. The worst part of in-fighting at the high school or lower collegiate levels is the prize is a $50-150 game fee. We're talking about a very small prize.

There's a lot of positives to like about officiating. Increased confidence, a secondary career or income, increased networking possibilities, camaraderie with others in the athletic community as well as the challenge of working the games played at a very high level. Like any other profession, the negatives sometimes garner more attention than the positives even when the number of positives is disproportionately large to the number of negatives. 

Mechanics of 5-4-2

Most basketball referees at the high school and collegiate level stop the clock under the rules of 5-4-2, excluding fouls. What is 5-4-2?

• Five fingers. An open-palmed, raised hand stops the clock for common violations and out-of-bounds plays.
• Four fingers. Pointing the direction of the ball after a foul call, most common on a charge or team control foul against the offense. Also used in pointing direction after a violation or out-of-bounds call.
• Two fingers. Used to point to a spot on the floor for an inbound throw, to a partner to signify the crew is in position to re-start the game or to beckon a player to a specific place on the floor.

Mr. Hampton, You Need To Apologize, Too

I made a mistake once, and Ron Oestrike let me know about it. Then he put his arm around me and let me know it was OK. Ron Oestrike is Eastern Michigan University's former baseball coach, but he also was a HS umpire. Once upon a time, I was a cub reporter for The Ann Arbor News. Oestrike was working the plate in a Michigan Class A quarterfinal in the early 1990's. Oestrike made a call, the correct call, mind you, a balk, that plated a run as one of Ann Arbor's local schools bowed out of the state playoffs. I drove back to Ann Arbor and told the story of the game.

My mistake? I ran Oestrike's name in the paper the next day. My editors had no idea I shouldn't be printing this, and neither did I. I had read beat writers like Tom Gage of The Detroit News print the names of umpires who made calls during Detroit Tiger games. I was an immature, young adult trying to do right in a job I had nothing but "Tiger Training" for, as in 'Go Get 'Em, Tiger!'.

I made a mistake.

Rickey Hampton, you made a mistake. Maybe your emotions got the best of you, or maybe you weren't certain of referee/media protocol, and maybe you didn't know that the list of officials you found in the pressbox wasn't for you to print in the morning edition.

Rickey Hampton writes for the Flint Journal. He printed the names of the officials who worked a high school football game. He shouldn't have. I'm here to say this: It's a mistake. It can be fixed, and I hope it is soon.

What I didn't know then is what you know now: You don't print the name of a high school official...ever...in regards to a specific call or decision. Just like you don't name the player, who, for example, snaps the ball over his quarterback's head at least 30 yards. The kid tried. He failed. So what? At least he tried, right?

They're high school officials, not professional referees. They can't talk to the media, per guideline, about specific plays in specific games you cover, anyway, so it's a moot point. The MHSAA Guidebook lists this protocol and it's available online. Look it up. And until you're willing to advocate professional fees for professional officials to come in and work the state playoffs, you don't get to print a man's name in a newspaper.

These officials work and live within our cluster of communities, and for a mistake, or perceived mistake, in a high school football game, for a $50 check, they should be the Don Denkingers of the the communities you write for?  I wasn't at the game. I don't know if the whistle did or didn't sound, and I didn't see the play, and I don't care to see it. What I do know is there was a play that created some confusion. The officials, I'm certain, made a mistake somewhere in this cluster. Yes, it was an important game. A game. A GAME. A mistake in a GAME is not grounds to print the names of officials as villians.

If a fan so irate with this perceived mistake took the name you printed, tracked down the official, harmed him, his wife, his son or his daughter, how would you and your editors defend your decision to print their names? In today's instant-information world, this is not worthy journalism.

We all make mistakes, we fix them and learn from them, and I've been as big a benefactor of that policy as anyone. To the editors of the Flint Journal, and to Mr. Rickey Hampton specifically, please repair this mistake.

Pro Sports: A Totally Different Game

One aspect of officiating collegiate and high school sports that is rarely mentioned? Rants from fans and coaches about rulings or decisions we make that are based, at least in part, on the professional games watched on television. The two games of HS football and pro football might as well be called different names because many times, pro sports are based on television and entertainment and not slanted as heavily towards sportsmanship or safety like school sports.

Here's a sampling:

"That pass was uncatchable!" A collegiate and professional football rule that has no bearing on the judgment of pass interference in the high school game. While most officials will at least notice if a pass is heading to the fifth row, if there's even a remote chance the receiver can make the catch, there's going to be a penalty.

"She was under the basket--that can't be a charge!" Coach is referring to the professional half-circle that is found on NBA courts to determine legality for block-charge, something that is not recognized on HS and college floors.

"Slide interference? How can you make that call--nobody makes that call!" This is one commonly heard at the ballfield around 2nd base on a force play, usually after the runner from 1st base has already been retired and is now attempting to disrupt the throw to first.

"He hit my receiver past the five-yard chuck line!" In HS football, as long as the contact is not illegal and the ball is not thrown past the line of scrimmage, there's no penalty. In pro football, this would be a penalty -- in HS football, it's not.

"He got hit with the pitch -- you're can't disallow him that base!" In HS and college baseball, the batter 1) must make an attempt to avoid being hit and 2) must not attempt to 'find' the pitch with his body. The attempt to avoid can be slight but at least noticeable, and there is no "chicken-winging", trying to reach an elbow out to find the ball.

"Stop the clock -- 2:00 warning!" Kind of explains itself.