No One Likes the Referee Calls. Get Use to It!

It's all a matter of perspective......good or bad Referee calls, I'm talking about......

If the foul or Violation is called on your opponent you think it's a good call! And your opponent thought it was a bad call! Perspective.

Oftentimes I'll hear a Coach in a High School Game, after I make a call on the opponent, shout, "Good Call!!" To which I reply, "Aren't they ALL 'Good Calls,' Coach?" Most Coaches will nod yes, or even chuckle & say, "Yes they are." One Coach said, "Yes, but some calls are more good than others!" Another said, "I wish you'd make more "Good Calls" on them and fewer on us!"

Sometimes that “bad call” your complaining about is the Ref adhering to the rules. Odds are, unless you’ve studied the Rule Book as much as the Refs do, there are probably some pesky rules you don’t know. Like I've said in my post If Your Gonna Yell at the Ref… it's best to know the rules.

Folks, it's EASY to play or spectate and make the game calls. It's HARD to actually be the Referee. I joked with Coach Jon Mott, who use to be the Globe High School Boy's Varsity Basketball Coach after he volunteered to refereed a church basketball game with me a few years ago. I asked him, "Did you even blow the whistle?" He said, "Yes, 3 times, but you also blew the whistle on the same calls." Then he said, "I wanted to blow the whistle a couple of other time but by the time I tried to blow the whistle the play was gone and it was too late!" Trust me, I have Refereed games for Globe High School and Coach Mott does not have trouble yelling, "That's a FOUL" from the bench when he's coaching a game. But even after all of his years of experience "refereeing from the bench" it's still tough to be the Referee on the floor and make the call.

Sometimes a Referee can get caught up watching a well-played game, so well played he gets distracted by the quality of the game itself and he sees something happen and thinks to himself, "Someone should have called that! Oh no, I'm THAT SOMEONE!!" The call is missed and it's too late to make it. It’s the same thing that happened to Coach Mott when he put on the black and white stripes. Don’t forget, Referees are fans of the game too, and we are human!

Have you ever watched a B-ball game and hear the announcer's say that was a perfectly called game? Nope. Not gonna happen. Too much happens too fast for 2 or even 3 Referees to see it all. Sometimes a big fellow, and there are usually a few of those in every game, steps between the play action and the Referee and the Referee's vision is completely blocked out just the instant a likely foul occurs and he misses the call. Too bad. Even the best Referees in the world- NBA, NFL, MLB, and NCAA often blow a call. Critical calls, too! Just keep playing.

"Stephen Curry" by Keith Allison via Flickr

NO ONE LIKES THE REFEREE CALLS. GET USE TO IT! Sometimes the Referee isn't real happy with the call he just made, either, just like you're not happy when you fire up an "Air Ball." Mistakes happen.

Billy Kennedy is a former Arizona High School & Junior College Ref currently in the NBA. He got his "Big Break" into the NBA during a NBA Referee Strike a few years ago. In a game with the Detroit Pistons, Doug Collins (I think he was the Detroit Pistons Head Coach) Billy made a call that Collins did not like. "I've been in this league for 20 years as a player and a coach and I've NEVER seen a Ref call like that before!!" Yelled the Coach. Billy's reply? "Coach, I've been in the league 2 weeks. Get used to it!!"

At the end of each game, every Referee makes some good calls and some bad calls. Hopefully a lot more good than bad, but they made what they thought was the proper call from their vantage point and what they saw. You may not have seen what they saw, or have the rules knowledge to know whether or not it was a “good call” but the calls have made. “Get used to it!!”