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.