Do refs call it right?
By TED FOX
Fox Sports ... Almost
Do referees get the call right most of the time?
Whoa, not everyone at once, and I'll ask the young man wearing the " I Don't Brake for Zebras" shirt to please calm down.
The fact of the matter is, if referees do their jobs right, they shouldn't be noticed.
Sure, sometimes you'll hear a broadcaster commend the crew on what a great job they've been doing all day. That usually sounds more forced than a girl telling you she really wishes she could go to your dance, if only her shampoo wasn't calling.
When any type of referee does get noticed, it's typically because the ever-unbiased opinion of the mob thinks he or she blew a call. This can range anywhere from missing a foul in basketball to the mishandling of a coin toss in a Steelers-Lions game a few years ago.
Sometimes, though, when the day is going just bad enough, the impartial third party of rules enforcers draws the collective ire of fans (whose ire is often more explicit), coaches, and players from both teams.
Take, for example, last Wednesday at the Joyce Center, when the Notre Dame men's basketball team hosted Pittsburgh. The Irish came out blazing, led 49-21 at the half, and cruised, with a few bumps along the way, to an 89-76 win.
What anyone who saw this game would remember from the first half is how well the Irish shot the basketball, connecting on nearly 68 percent of their shots from the floor. Chris Thomas' runner at the horn summed up what the whole half had shown: this was Notre Dame's night.
In the first 20 minutes, there were six team fouls called against Notre Dame and nine whistled on the Panthers.
To an observer, it looked like Pittsburgh head coach Ben Howland might have been lobbying for some calls from time to time, but that comes with the territory when you're having a frustrating night and your team's getting pasted.
And then came the second half that wouldn't end.
" I think they [the referees] found out at halftime their plane got canceled," David Graves said after the game, " so they had to stay the night, they didn't have anywhere to go. So they just called everything."
Indeed it seemed that way. Those 20 minutes of game time in the second half drug on longer than Lord of the Rings, as 34 fouls were called on the two teams.
Notre Dame only ended up leading the second half foul tally 19-15, but, as Graves pointed out, there was one point when the Irish had been called for 10 infractions to the Panthers' one infraction.
Coach Mike Brey was surprised it was that close. His response to that foul breakdown? " It was that even?" he asked.
Of course, the rough and tumble nature of the Big East always plays a role in fouls stacking up, as Brey acknowledged: " I just think that's our league. People physically come after everybody in this league. They like coming after us. We talked about it at halftime, I fully expected [Pittsburgh going at them].
" We can't back down. We can't throw punches and be lost for a game, but . . . we ain't backing down."
As referees, they had to maintain a sense of order in a game played in a very physical conference.
But what did fans take away from this game? More than likely, it wasn't the Irish blowing up on a ranked team or Pittsburgh's heart in refusing to go away.
It was the second half whistle chorus with a couple of technical crescendos.
Officiating, no matter what sport, is a subjective art. There are rules that are written, and it is up to those on site, sometimes in the blink of an eye, to decide how the rules apply to any particular play. It would be unfair for players, coaches, or fans to expect the calls to be right every time.
And yet listen to John Madden on Sunday, noting that penalty calls in the Super Bowl are much less likely than in other NFL games.
Watch Major League Baseball umpires struggle to reconfigure their own strike zones to match that which is defined in the rulebook.
Or count 34 fouls being called in 20 minutes of basketball.
It's funny how discretion can change those steadfast rules from day to day.
All Sports Stories for Tuesday, February 5, 2002
