Referees Are Infuriating

I’m not really a team sport kind of guy.  I am much more likely to spend my time with solo endurance athletics like cycling, running and climbing.  But I do like to watch football on a Sunday afternoon when I have time.  My problem is that I get all fired up.  A referee will make a boneheaded call and I find myself on my feet bellowing at the incomprehensible idiocy displayed. 

What's that yellow thing?
Dude. That fell out of your pocket.  Now you have to make something up.
(Picture courtesy Jeramey Jannene, Creative Commons license)

I admit it.  I don’t like referees.  I’m not sure a lot of players (or fans, or ex-players, or coaches) do.  You can call them officials, referees, or umpires and I still don't like them.  I played baseball from tee ball through high school.  One of my favorite things to shout at an umpire was, “Hey, Blue!  If you had one more eye, you’d be a cyclops!”  I love seeing a baseball manager scream at an ump face-to-face, kick dirt on their shoes, and throw third base.  Awesome stuff.  I think most people would admit that a ref’s job is demanding in its own right.  But I don’t understand why anyone would want to be a referee.  Why wouldn’t you play if you could play? 

No call that goes against my team is fair, sensible, or warranted.  All flags thrown against my team are the result of pure idiocy or a nefarious plot by “the man” to bring my team to ruin.

“That wasn’t holding! His hand got accidentally tangled in his shirt!” 

“That call was obviously because the ref was out to get me!  What, are they being paid off?!?” 

Good calls, or good non-calls, absolutely go unrecognized.  I mean, that’s the referee’s job – getting it right is what you are paid for.

Remember the Seattle-Green Bay game from 2012?  One ref is signaling touchdown, the other is signaling time out.  The crew decided on simultaneous possession and the Seahawks won.  The replay showed pass interference and the Packers should have won.  Nice work, boys.

Refs are important for game efficiency, but aren’t really a necessity. There are thousands of pick-up basketball games, touch football games in the park, and informal baseball games on an empty diamond every day.  All without referees tilting the balance in favor of one team or another.

But none of that is really a reasonable point of view, is it?

Peter King, from the Monday Morning Quarterback website, was recently allowed unprecedented access to an NFL officiating crew for the first time ever.  That resulted in three incredibly interesting articles (one, two, three – if you’re a football fan, follow the links and read the articles) that help to tell the story of how professional football referees work.  I was surprised at how much preparation goes into their job.  I was also surprised at how much scrutiny they are under from the NFL office.  It was enlightening to find out that their orders (e.g. what to emphasize, what to look for, what rules to enforce more stringently) come directly from the NFL.  Their decisions look arbitrary (even spiteful), but are the result of the NFL planning changes to the game to improve the product.  I suppose that makes sense, but the players, coaches, and teams have almost no say in the matter.  The NFL says to pay more attention to hits involving helmets and the officiating crew pays more attention to hits involving helmets.  Refs are graded by the NFL, not the players or fans.  So the refs go with what the NFL wants, not what the players or fans want.  I’m sure that Major League Baseball, the NBA, the Premier League, La Liga, etc., are all set up the same way.

I didn’t realize the work, knowledge, and discipline required of a referee.  I didn’t realize the scrutiny they were under.  Did you know that every play is watched repeatedly by multiple experts who don’t just look for bad calls, but bad non-calls too?  Did you know that each NFL official watches three or four players on each play, dependent on the formation, and the assignments change when the formation changes but the refs don’t verbalize or otherwise coordinate who is watching whom?  They just know their job.  They are as coordinated as the players in a lot of respects.

Referees get no respect. 

Damn.  I hate it when reading opens my mind.

Fast decisions in the “heat of battle” made at full speed can have a huge effect on the game.  It is a massive responsibility.  It is entirely too easy to second-guess a ref’s decision with instant replay and slow motion when I’m half in the bag at home.  In my calmer moments I will admit that I probably would do a much worse job than the professional officials do.  (‘Calamitous debacle’ is the description that comes to mind if you put me in stripes).  And when it gets down to it, I can see that there is a big difference between a pickup game of football in the park on Thanksgiving afternoon and Monday Night Football in front of a national audience.  The officiating crew can be almost perfect, but I only notice the one or two plays that they drop the ball on.  (They do screw up – they are human).

I still don’t like refs.  I still get all fired up at boneheaded calls that I can see were bad calls.  I still shout and complain to nobody.  But after learning about their point of view, expertise, knowledge base, and job pressures, I think I respect refs a little more.

It struck me: I feel the same way about EMS dispatchers as I do referees.  Replace NFL with command staff, game with EMS system, team with ambulance, referee with dispatch, and player with paramedics and it is almost exactly the same situation.

Weird.