End Of Games, End Of Days
March 29, 2017 at 4:04 p.m.
By Roger Grossman-
They are a mile marker on the calendar of life, because when my vehicle pulls into my driveway my life becomes a lot closer to what the rest of you would recognize as normal.
The microphone is traded in for fishing poles.
Press tables are traded in for lawn chairs around the campfire pit.
My broadcast equipment bag swapped for a golf bag.
Oh, I am still covering high school sports, but just in a much different way. You get what I am saying.
So some stuff has come up that I want to bring to your attention. Again, all subjects worthy of space in my column all on their own.
Something happened Saturday night in the 3A state championship game that I have put off a couple of times, but I can’t avoid it any longer. It’s the concept that officials should not call fouls or ball handling violations in end-of-game scenarios.
You have seen it before, right? Time running out, one-possession game, team with a chance to win or tie the game. The team on defense clearly commits a foul that has been called a foul virtually every time for the first 98-percent of the game, but the officials just seem to ignore it. The coach and players are in raged disbelief. How could that NOT be a foul?
It’s not a foul, because of this occasionally applied concept that officials “want the players to determine the outcome of the game, not their calls.”
That’s a very nice thing to say, but it’s a giant pile of poo!
I was a referee for 26 years. I didn’t work a lot of high-profile games because of my broadcasting career, but I did do some games that went down the final possession. And yes, I called fouls that ultimately led to free throws in the final seconds of games. I don’t know how many, and I don’t remember any of them too specifically because my conscience is clear that the call I made was the right one.
But when an official doesn’t call something in the final seconds of the game in the name of letting the players decide the game and not their call, the exact opposite of what their intentions are happens. By not calling a foul that would be a foul or pass interference or anything else that would be a foul at any other time of the game, you prevent a player from making a play to win that game.
We saw it in one of the championship games Saturday. A player ran over another player on the final inbounds pass of the game and the official not only looked at it and didn’t call it, he waved his arms with his palms up as if to say “I saw that but get up, because I am not calling it.”
Nowhere in the rules book, the case book or the officials’ manual does it say anything about viewing the last 30 seconds of a game differently from the rest of it.
One of the things that has been interesting to follow this year has been the Fort Wayne North Side boys basketball team, who came up three points short of a state title Saturday night.
A back story for this team was the re-branding of the school from the Redskins to the Legends. Their logo is a Phoenix rising, and the school and the North Side community have taken hold of that new logo and mascot and are using it as the pivot point to a new attitude. Unlike in Goshen where the change was made begrudgingly and with much push-back, the people of North Side have embraced this and are turning it into a new attitude.
And that community showed up Saturday in Indianapolis. New attitude. New outlook. Better neighborhood. Better school.
Good lesson for all of us.
A few things that came to mind in the past few days:
• Do you think that, with the North Carolina Tar Heels in the Final Four Saturday, the so-called “bathroom law” is going to come up in the broadcast coverage? And how awkward is it for the NCAA, who took away events from the state of North Carolina because of that law, to have UNC involved in their highest-profile event?
• I wonder if anyone in the DNR will ever rethink the fishing regulation that allows people aged 65 and older to fish without paying for a license. I understand that people of that age group are retired or retiring and are more likely on fixed incomes. I get that. But those people also fish more because they have more time to be on the water. So your most frequent consumer pays nothing for participating in that activity? I’d like to see the DNR hold some hearings to see if the really smart people of Indiana could come up with some solutions.
And finally, a memory of Jeff Jeffers, who passed away Sunday morning at the age of 64. He had been at WNDU for 40 years, and had battled back after a stroke to return to the airwaves on a limited basis.
I could write a whole column just on this guy. Everyone who has been pouring out their hearts in memory of a beloved man has been remembering him for so many different reasons. I think it says something that people remember him for his hosting of the Notre Dame football pregame show, for his play by play of Notre Dame football back in the 1970s, for his work as a studio anchor at WNDU that earned him the title “Dean of Local Sports.”
I have never lit a candle at the famed Grotto on the Notre Dame campus, but the next time I am there to visit, I’m going to light one: not for Jeff. Nope, it will be for Maureen, Terry, Mike, Angelo and Chuck – his co-anchors who have this huge hole in their lives that just won’t be filled.
Latest News
E-Editions
They are a mile marker on the calendar of life, because when my vehicle pulls into my driveway my life becomes a lot closer to what the rest of you would recognize as normal.
The microphone is traded in for fishing poles.
Press tables are traded in for lawn chairs around the campfire pit.
My broadcast equipment bag swapped for a golf bag.
Oh, I am still covering high school sports, but just in a much different way. You get what I am saying.
So some stuff has come up that I want to bring to your attention. Again, all subjects worthy of space in my column all on their own.
Something happened Saturday night in the 3A state championship game that I have put off a couple of times, but I can’t avoid it any longer. It’s the concept that officials should not call fouls or ball handling violations in end-of-game scenarios.
You have seen it before, right? Time running out, one-possession game, team with a chance to win or tie the game. The team on defense clearly commits a foul that has been called a foul virtually every time for the first 98-percent of the game, but the officials just seem to ignore it. The coach and players are in raged disbelief. How could that NOT be a foul?
It’s not a foul, because of this occasionally applied concept that officials “want the players to determine the outcome of the game, not their calls.”
That’s a very nice thing to say, but it’s a giant pile of poo!
I was a referee for 26 years. I didn’t work a lot of high-profile games because of my broadcasting career, but I did do some games that went down the final possession. And yes, I called fouls that ultimately led to free throws in the final seconds of games. I don’t know how many, and I don’t remember any of them too specifically because my conscience is clear that the call I made was the right one.
But when an official doesn’t call something in the final seconds of the game in the name of letting the players decide the game and not their call, the exact opposite of what their intentions are happens. By not calling a foul that would be a foul or pass interference or anything else that would be a foul at any other time of the game, you prevent a player from making a play to win that game.
We saw it in one of the championship games Saturday. A player ran over another player on the final inbounds pass of the game and the official not only looked at it and didn’t call it, he waved his arms with his palms up as if to say “I saw that but get up, because I am not calling it.”
Nowhere in the rules book, the case book or the officials’ manual does it say anything about viewing the last 30 seconds of a game differently from the rest of it.
One of the things that has been interesting to follow this year has been the Fort Wayne North Side boys basketball team, who came up three points short of a state title Saturday night.
A back story for this team was the re-branding of the school from the Redskins to the Legends. Their logo is a Phoenix rising, and the school and the North Side community have taken hold of that new logo and mascot and are using it as the pivot point to a new attitude. Unlike in Goshen where the change was made begrudgingly and with much push-back, the people of North Side have embraced this and are turning it into a new attitude.
And that community showed up Saturday in Indianapolis. New attitude. New outlook. Better neighborhood. Better school.
Good lesson for all of us.
A few things that came to mind in the past few days:
• Do you think that, with the North Carolina Tar Heels in the Final Four Saturday, the so-called “bathroom law” is going to come up in the broadcast coverage? And how awkward is it for the NCAA, who took away events from the state of North Carolina because of that law, to have UNC involved in their highest-profile event?
• I wonder if anyone in the DNR will ever rethink the fishing regulation that allows people aged 65 and older to fish without paying for a license. I understand that people of that age group are retired or retiring and are more likely on fixed incomes. I get that. But those people also fish more because they have more time to be on the water. So your most frequent consumer pays nothing for participating in that activity? I’d like to see the DNR hold some hearings to see if the really smart people of Indiana could come up with some solutions.
And finally, a memory of Jeff Jeffers, who passed away Sunday morning at the age of 64. He had been at WNDU for 40 years, and had battled back after a stroke to return to the airwaves on a limited basis.
I could write a whole column just on this guy. Everyone who has been pouring out their hearts in memory of a beloved man has been remembering him for so many different reasons. I think it says something that people remember him for his hosting of the Notre Dame football pregame show, for his play by play of Notre Dame football back in the 1970s, for his work as a studio anchor at WNDU that earned him the title “Dean of Local Sports.”
I have never lit a candle at the famed Grotto on the Notre Dame campus, but the next time I am there to visit, I’m going to light one: not for Jeff. Nope, it will be for Maureen, Terry, Mike, Angelo and Chuck – his co-anchors who have this huge hole in their lives that just won’t be filled.
Have a news tip? Email [email protected] or Call/Text 360-922-3092