en-us Copyright 2008 - All Rights Reserved. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:04:51 GMT 15 By Ryan Prince
As an avid sports fan, I often feel like the referees are biased against my team, especially the Dallas Mavericks. I often blame them for my team’s misfortunes. There are times I let my own biased opinion get the best of me, but I recently took an objective view on officials in sports and discovered a blatant problem; they have way too much leverage in deciding what goes on in a sports event, particularly basketball. I first realized the massive impact officials have when National Basketball Association (NBA) referee Tim Donaghy was caught gambling last summer on games he officiated. Like many basketball fans, I wondered if other referees were doing the same thing. It would certainly explain how Dwayne Wade got every possible call in the 2006 NBA Finals. I’m not taking anything away from his performance, but I cannot deny his insane amount of free throws from an obvious lack of contact. Although no other referees have been caught gambling, I still wonder why I cannot watch a basketball game without wanting to throw the remote at the television. Whether it was the last-second foul call, or the lack of calls for my team, I just couldn’t handle the inconsistency. Even when they were officiating a game I completely didn’t care about, I couldn’t believe how many calls I disagreed with. I miss the days when the referees just put their whistles in their pockets in the last seconds of a big game. Now they seem to get whistle happy towards the finish, and it becomes a free throw competition. If fans wanted that to be the case, we would petition the league to put a free throw competition with all the skill competitions during All-Star weekend. From what I remember, Michael Jordan didn’t win any big games because referees sent him to the free throw line late in the game, he had to earn it. It is commonly perceived that referees did have some bias towards Jordan, since they never called him for traveling, which further enhances my point. When talking about a great player or a great game, the officials should be completely left out of the equation. Officials impacting a big game in a negative way dates back to the 1960 Olympic Games when the USA basketball team played Russia in the finals. A Russian player called a timeout and the referees did not realize they didn’t have any timeouts left. This stopped the clock with just seconds left and allowed Russia to make a last second shot to win the game. Although this epidemic began many years ago, the big problem seems to have been brought more into the spotlight when Mark Cuban bought the Dallas Mavericks, and pointed out just how bad the situation had become. He has constantly questioned officiating and has attracted a lot of fines and controversy by how he expressed his criticisms. Officials can impact all sports, but I believe most officials seem to do a rather good job due to the strong accountability and firm set of rules. The big problem resides in the NBA. They need to be much more clear on what separates fouls like a charge and a blocking foul. They need to begin cracking down on traveling violations. They need to find a way to better enforce continuation (whether a basket counts after a foul has been called). Every referee crew seems to have a different interpretation. Maybe the league needs a rule change; maybe they need better referees. All I know is there’s a problem and it needs fixing. The impact these officials have effects more than just what happens late in the game. They seem to affect the overall entertainment as well. When the biggest games come down to a stop in play and a free throw, the suspense is lost. I miss the days when the game was decided with a strong drive down the lane, or a shot that seemed to hang in the air for hours. I miss when the referees just became spectators in the last couple minutes and let the players decide who was the better team. I miss when great players like Michael Jordan and Larry Bird were forced to impose their will on offense without help from an official. I have personally lost my love for the NBA, and if something doesn’t change soon, others will follow suit. The NBA is a dying league and Commissioner David Stern needs to do something about it. ]]> Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:14:00 GMT