Now that the NFL and its officials have finally inked their deal, I find myself to have mixed feelings for the replacement officials who stepped in and tried to do a very difficult job.
I have, over the past 25 years, been a part-time official in multiple sports. I have the most experience doing baseball games, ranging from coach pitch games to early high-school age. I've been doing it a long time, and in all honesty, am pretty good at it.
But I would have absolutely NO business strapping on my gear and getting behind the plate at a Major League ballpark. None whatsoever. I just don't have the experience, the raw time under my belt, adjudging pitches at those speeds and with the movement that professional pitchers can apply to the ball. I could do better out in the field, but even then I know I need more time and experience, and more knowledge on some aspects of the game. I wouldn't want to be responsible for calling balks on a major league pitcher!
The game is just too fast, and the skills of the players makes the 'margin of judgement' on each and every play much tighter. An official has to be at the top of their game... this is why umpires spend years in the minor leagues before advancing to The Show. The players deserve this level of professionalism. Yes, the fans deserve it as well, but the first responsibility of an official is to the game and the people who play it.
Thus, the replacement refs were in a nigh-impossible situation. Many of them may be very good officials, but they had never plied their trade at such an advanced level, and it showed. (Many of these officials "jumped" multiple levels when they took these jobs, because some of the best collegiate officials were unavailable because their conference bosses are NFL referees that were locked out.)
So, that then begs the question: why did they agree to do it? And thus we hit the source of my mixed feelings.
This isn't a discourse on the "scabs" vs. "union" worker debate. That's not my focus today. I can honestly say, that, if the same choice were to be offered to me, I would have turned them down. I know I"m not qualified to officiate at that level, and I would do the game an injustice by attempting to do so. And they had to know it could not possibly last- eventually the NFL would get their Dumb Hat off, reach into the spare change jar and make a deal to get the top-line officiating back.
Maybe they hoped that this would be their big break... that the time spent on this grandest of all American sports stages would highlight their skills, and perhaps open advancement possibilities for them. Maybe they just wanted the money. Obviously, I can't speak for their collective or individual thought processes when the NFL came calling. But one hopes they knew they were wading off into the jungle without a machete.
Every week, I felt a heart-breaking empathy with them as fellow officials. Officiating is hard enough as it is... it is not something that just anyone can do. In a profession where one's goal should be to get it right and stay out of the spotlight- these guys were under a nationwide microscope for 2 months. And they were doing it without the requisite experience and skills needed to do the job. So I felt for them....
...and every week I wondered... "why did you put yourself in this situation"?
I have, over the past 25 years, been a part-time official in multiple sports. I have the most experience doing baseball games, ranging from coach pitch games to early high-school age. I've been doing it a long time, and in all honesty, am pretty good at it.
But I would have absolutely NO business strapping on my gear and getting behind the plate at a Major League ballpark. None whatsoever. I just don't have the experience, the raw time under my belt, adjudging pitches at those speeds and with the movement that professional pitchers can apply to the ball. I could do better out in the field, but even then I know I need more time and experience, and more knowledge on some aspects of the game. I wouldn't want to be responsible for calling balks on a major league pitcher!
The game is just too fast, and the skills of the players makes the 'margin of judgement' on each and every play much tighter. An official has to be at the top of their game... this is why umpires spend years in the minor leagues before advancing to The Show. The players deserve this level of professionalism. Yes, the fans deserve it as well, but the first responsibility of an official is to the game and the people who play it.
Thus, the replacement refs were in a nigh-impossible situation. Many of them may be very good officials, but they had never plied their trade at such an advanced level, and it showed. (Many of these officials "jumped" multiple levels when they took these jobs, because some of the best collegiate officials were unavailable because their conference bosses are NFL referees that were locked out.)
So, that then begs the question: why did they agree to do it? And thus we hit the source of my mixed feelings.
This isn't a discourse on the "scabs" vs. "union" worker debate. That's not my focus today. I can honestly say, that, if the same choice were to be offered to me, I would have turned them down. I know I"m not qualified to officiate at that level, and I would do the game an injustice by attempting to do so. And they had to know it could not possibly last- eventually the NFL would get their Dumb Hat off, reach into the spare change jar and make a deal to get the top-line officiating back.
Maybe they hoped that this would be their big break... that the time spent on this grandest of all American sports stages would highlight their skills, and perhaps open advancement possibilities for them. Maybe they just wanted the money. Obviously, I can't speak for their collective or individual thought processes when the NFL came calling. But one hopes they knew they were wading off into the jungle without a machete.
Every week, I felt a heart-breaking empathy with them as fellow officials. Officiating is hard enough as it is... it is not something that just anyone can do. In a profession where one's goal should be to get it right and stay out of the spotlight- these guys were under a nationwide microscope for 2 months. And they were doing it without the requisite experience and skills needed to do the job. So I felt for them....
...and every week I wondered... "why did you put yourself in this situation"?
