There is a lot to enjoy and savor from last night's National Championship by the Baylor Bears, but I could not help but think about the officiating. As a Baylor fan, I felt at times that the officials favored Gonzaga, almost as if they were deliberately trying to help the Zags, but reading the Gonzaga fan board I observe that a lot of Bulldog fans felt that the officials were biased in favor of Baylor. So I am aware that emotion and my own bias as a fan colors my opinion of officiating at times. But as a former official trained in the sport, I observed a number of incidents where by the book fouls were not being called which should have been called, and calls were made in a way which benefited one side more than others. Notably, I saw mistakes made which benefited/hurt both teams, which was interesting given the high standard of the officials who worked the game. All of the three referees who worked the Championship game had three or more Final Four appearances as officials, and they were all well-established as excellent officials. That fact makes the matter intriguing as an intellectual exercise.
Sports officials are unusual people. To be a good official, you have to understand the rules as well as the game, plus you have to have people skills because you will need to explain some unpopular decisions. Further, you need to have a sense of just how much you can do to control the game; no one buys a ticket to see a game stopped over and over just to enforce a rule. You have to have confidence in your ability to see what happens, grasp the context and identify if you need to react, then act at the right level, all the while trying not to be the focus.
Further, I always found basketball to be one of the more difficult sports to officiate due to the fast action. In football, for example, I could watch the action, and throw a flag when I was certain a foul had occurred, sometimes at the end of a play. I also had the option of discussing a call with other referees and picking up the flag if we decided that was the right action. In baseball, I could wait until the action happened, make a signal while further action happened or call the play dead at that point as I deemed necessary. And like football, a call could be changed after discussion with other officials.
But in basketball, the official has to blow a whistle as soon as an action is observed, and make an immediate call. Further, while timing issues or severity of a foul can be reviewed, foul/no foul calls cannot be reviewed. This puts a lot of pressure on officials to anticipate behavior, which can lead to false whistles.
One thing I liked about working multiple sports, is that you learn good rules which carry over to other sports, and one of the big ones is that you can only call a foul if you actually see it. You cannot call what you think you saw, but in basketball that happens more than in other sports. There were at least two occasions where Baylor clearly tied up the ball but was called for a phantom foul. This happened because the officials knew Baylor was more aggressive, Few and his assistants were screaming about fouls, and suddenly the Zag player is fighting for the ball with a Baylor defender, and the whistle goes off almost on its own.
As an aside, this is why you see a lot of officials who don't run with a whistle in their mouth, but held in their hands it's to force them to think while they raise the whistle to blow it, but that's not so common in basketball, again because the officials are trained to react without that delay. The correct mechanic to avoid assumption does not look as crisp, and so officials learn that to work the big games they have to make a fast call, and they hope to get most of them right. This was also a factor in a foul called on a steal by Baylor when the pick was clean; all of the officials were out of position to see clearly but they felt like they needed to react.
To be fair, Baylor also benefitted from calls, notably the 3 second call. I never liked the mechanics of the 3 second rule, because you have 3 officials trying to watch 10 guys running around, and you're supposed to know if a guy in the paint who does not have the ball has been there 3 seconds or not. There were a few times where the Bears had a guy near the basket longer than he should have been, but the team as a whole moved so often that it was hard to catch. Gonzaga fans were furious of course, but it's asking a lot to follow the ball, attackers and defenders, then add that to the mix.
And then there is the elephant in the room. Television. I was never in the college ranks of officials, but I could tell that even in high school, everything changes in the playoffs, especially in later stages. When you get to a state championship, you can't help but notice the crowd, the TV, and all the attention that goes with it. So a National Championship game for the NCAA in a major sport like football or Basketball is going to have its own pressures. It's not that CBS shows up at the officials' dressing room and makes any demands, or that the NCAA does that, but the officials are aware that they will be scrutinized and judged not only by whether they got the calls right, but also by whether the officials appeared to slow the action or 'get in the way' of the game. Officials are also judged by whether they appear to let a game get out of hand, such as right or wrong letting a Championship game become a blowout. Gonzaga plainly got some mercy calls to give them a chance to regroup. That's something I consider unethical for an official, but I understand the pressure for officials to placate the people who decide on officials for the next year's Final Four. It wouldn't even be blackballing to let an official work his regular schedule of games but simply not be selected for the Final Four. Only eleven officials are given that honor, so the NCAA can be picky and use whatever criteria they deem important. And the NCAA has always deemed TV ratings important.
Finally, never forget that officials are human beings. They want to do a good job and get all the calls right, and when you think about all the action, the passes, shots, footwork, hand actions and so on, by and large they do get it right. The missed calls are not intentional unless the game is in Allen Fieldhouse or at Duke, so cut them some slack and enjoy the game.
Sports officials are unusual people. To be a good official, you have to understand the rules as well as the game, plus you have to have people skills because you will need to explain some unpopular decisions. Further, you need to have a sense of just how much you can do to control the game; no one buys a ticket to see a game stopped over and over just to enforce a rule. You have to have confidence in your ability to see what happens, grasp the context and identify if you need to react, then act at the right level, all the while trying not to be the focus.
Further, I always found basketball to be one of the more difficult sports to officiate due to the fast action. In football, for example, I could watch the action, and throw a flag when I was certain a foul had occurred, sometimes at the end of a play. I also had the option of discussing a call with other referees and picking up the flag if we decided that was the right action. In baseball, I could wait until the action happened, make a signal while further action happened or call the play dead at that point as I deemed necessary. And like football, a call could be changed after discussion with other officials.
But in basketball, the official has to blow a whistle as soon as an action is observed, and make an immediate call. Further, while timing issues or severity of a foul can be reviewed, foul/no foul calls cannot be reviewed. This puts a lot of pressure on officials to anticipate behavior, which can lead to false whistles.
One thing I liked about working multiple sports, is that you learn good rules which carry over to other sports, and one of the big ones is that you can only call a foul if you actually see it. You cannot call what you think you saw, but in basketball that happens more than in other sports. There were at least two occasions where Baylor clearly tied up the ball but was called for a phantom foul. This happened because the officials knew Baylor was more aggressive, Few and his assistants were screaming about fouls, and suddenly the Zag player is fighting for the ball with a Baylor defender, and the whistle goes off almost on its own.
As an aside, this is why you see a lot of officials who don't run with a whistle in their mouth, but held in their hands it's to force them to think while they raise the whistle to blow it, but that's not so common in basketball, again because the officials are trained to react without that delay. The correct mechanic to avoid assumption does not look as crisp, and so officials learn that to work the big games they have to make a fast call, and they hope to get most of them right. This was also a factor in a foul called on a steal by Baylor when the pick was clean; all of the officials were out of position to see clearly but they felt like they needed to react.
To be fair, Baylor also benefitted from calls, notably the 3 second call. I never liked the mechanics of the 3 second rule, because you have 3 officials trying to watch 10 guys running around, and you're supposed to know if a guy in the paint who does not have the ball has been there 3 seconds or not. There were a few times where the Bears had a guy near the basket longer than he should have been, but the team as a whole moved so often that it was hard to catch. Gonzaga fans were furious of course, but it's asking a lot to follow the ball, attackers and defenders, then add that to the mix.
And then there is the elephant in the room. Television. I was never in the college ranks of officials, but I could tell that even in high school, everything changes in the playoffs, especially in later stages. When you get to a state championship, you can't help but notice the crowd, the TV, and all the attention that goes with it. So a National Championship game for the NCAA in a major sport like football or Basketball is going to have its own pressures. It's not that CBS shows up at the officials' dressing room and makes any demands, or that the NCAA does that, but the officials are aware that they will be scrutinized and judged not only by whether they got the calls right, but also by whether the officials appeared to slow the action or 'get in the way' of the game. Officials are also judged by whether they appear to let a game get out of hand, such as right or wrong letting a Championship game become a blowout. Gonzaga plainly got some mercy calls to give them a chance to regroup. That's something I consider unethical for an official, but I understand the pressure for officials to placate the people who decide on officials for the next year's Final Four. It wouldn't even be blackballing to let an official work his regular schedule of games but simply not be selected for the Final Four. Only eleven officials are given that honor, so the NCAA can be picky and use whatever criteria they deem important. And the NCAA has always deemed TV ratings important.
Finally, never forget that officials are human beings. They want to do a good job and get all the calls right, and when you think about all the action, the passes, shots, footwork, hand actions and so on, by and large they do get it right. The missed calls are not intentional unless the game is in Allen Fieldhouse or at Duke, so cut them some slack and enjoy the game.
That which does not kill me, will try again and get nastier