Choking on the Whistle

Referees in any sport have a hard job. I get that. They are tasked with a nearly impossible mission in an utterly thankless job. As such, I think it is good to give them grace for their mistakes. The NFL referee fiasco from the beginning of the year should teach us once and for all that the real professionals are indispensable. But I must take umbrage with one tendency that seems almost uniform across the profession: the way that in last second plays the defending team could sodomize the opposing player with a yardstick and the referees would still choke on their whistles.

We have seen this twice this past week in two big games. One, obviously, the granddaddy of them all, when in the Super Bowl a clear pass interference was neglected on the deciding play of the game. The other, last night's excellent college basketball game between Michigan and Ohio State.

Now at the outset I want to say that there is nothing worse than a referee becoming the star of the game. They are there to maintain order and not decide the winner. I also don't want referees being quick with the whistle at the end of the game. My fellow K-Staters will recall with dismay the end of the Pinstripe Bowl in 2011 when we were hosed by a personal foul celebration penalty that pushed our game-tying two point conversion attempt from the three yard line to the 18. That was egregious and unnecessary  not to mention completely disconnected from the play. If our player had pushed off severely to free himself it would be hard to argue with the penalty. But this a different consideration altogether; it is not a question of taking the game into their hands, but a question of neglecting their job for fear of making the big call.

During that play in the Super Bowl it was almost humorous to me to hear the justifications from the commentators who as a group resolutely refuse to hold officials accountable for bad calls. They pointed out that Crabtree was making contact with the defender on the play as well, which was certainly true. But they neglected to mention why he was making contact with the defender. The answer: the defender was grabbing him and he was trying to extricate himself so he could, you know, catch a game-winning touchdown. Grabbing a receiver so he can't finish his route and trying to free oneself from a grip is not the same thing. And the official standing ten feet away knew it. But the defender knew, and everyone in the crowd knew, that he could do about anything he wanted without being flagged for a penalty. And he took advantage. This one hurt a bit because I wanted the 49ers to win.

The other game--Michigan vs Ohio State--ended with Aaron Craft's drive to the basket where he was clobbered by two Michigan defenders. Again, no call. This time I wanted Michigan to win due to my disdain for everything having to do with The Ohio State University, so the bad call benefited my side, but it was still a bad call. Ohio State was down two points. Craft at least deserved the chance to try and tie it from the charity stripe. Instead the referee in position to make the call looked blithely on as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The ESPN talking head, making the standard justification in these cases, said that while there was certainly contact it was the end of the game and you can't expect that call to be made. This seems like pretty awful circular logic to me: you can't make a big call at the end of a game because it is the end of the game and you don't make big calls at the end of a game.

But this isn't supposed to be a point of consideration of the referees. Why is something that is a foul with 5 minutes left suddenly not when there is 5 seconds left? In what world does that make sense? It needs to stop. It ruins the integrity of those big plays to have them tarnished by blatant non-calls.

I don't expect any commission of officials to read this and institute new rules, I just wanted to vent. And if you read this far, I imagine you probably agreed with me already. Didn't that feel good?