The Sports Guy

Shouts of angry fans bounced off the walls of the Centennial Center this week as many students questioned the calls of student referees in the intramural basketball tournament. One team was even given a “bench warning” for being too rowdy and aggressive in their criticism. Are GCSU fans out of hand or are the referees just that bad?
As a fan, participant and writer for many sports, I know that not every game will be officiated perfectly. There will be instances when a call or two is a mistake or missed, but in numerous games I observed in the tournament this week, referees missed calls such as jump ball, up and down, and more than enough foul calls. Are these student officials even being trained or are we just giving them a whistle and pointing them to the court?
Each student referee is sent through two-day training. On the first day of training, students are taught the rules of the game. On the second day, students undergo simulation of the game to gain live experience of the job.
Although these officials are knowledgeable about the rules I have seen many referees go an entire game without making one call. There is no way that everyone is playing flawless basketball.
Basketball is a fast paced game that takes an experienced referee to officiate. Like many things in life, it takes experience to be great at something. This is the same for officiating.
“As far as actually teaching someone how to referee, I can only do that to a certain point,” Sanderson said. “You are not going to become a good official until you have lots of experience doing it. The longer you do it, the more confidence you get and the better you see the game.”
The intramural department needs to assign experienced referees to basketball. Any referee with less than a year of experience should not officiate basketball. Basketball is one of the more technical sport offered by intramurals. First time officials need to start with sports such as ultimate disc or softball.
As for the fans, do not be extremely critical of the officials. They are human and do make mistakes. Even officials of collegiate and professional sports do not make every call. Be patient with the refs. Check out gcsunade.com for more thoughts on the subject.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Mar 2 2007. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry