Professionalism....Or Lack Thereof

I have to admit, I am quite surprised that I still am getting tons of hits and page views, so I will throw a few observations and stories on here in the next few weeks. Hopefully the dude in Germany who visits frequently will be happy! Heard another unfortunate story about an inexperienced and arrogant official exhibiting unbridled unprofessionalism that really disappoints me. As an official, especially if you are an R or a veteran, the way you carry yourself and speak to people is very important. You can be the nice guy, or you can be very blunt and direct, but you had better be professional. There are two reasons for this: 1) For every coach or player you have the ability to dress down verbally or punish with your whistle, there will be somebody waiting to stick it to you at some point in the future. May never happen, but it makes you a smaller person and you will not be remembered well when you hang them up. 2) No matter what happens, if someone believes you are unprofessional, I guarantee you that there will be a story from you and a story from the school--they will be very different and you will be stained by it. A long, long time ago I had the wonderful opportunity to ref a JV/V doubleheader. JV game at 3, Varsity game at 5. Get to the gym at 2, do the JV game, and then we got informed that they are having a spaghetti feed, so the Varsity game won't start until 8. Wonderful news, especially when there is literally 200 residents within 15 miles of our location. So we hung out, waited, and shot some baskets in their secondary gym to pass the time. Varsity game starts, home team starts losing. One of the home team kids starts being an ass. The coach starts being an ass. The kid starts traveling on every move he makes in the post, so we start calling it. I bet we called it 6 times in the third quarter. We're getting screamed at, and I am kind of laughing and smiling. Two minutes left, coach curses at me, so I issue my first T of my Varsity career. One minute later, coach melts down. Partner issues his second T; I tell him he has to leave. All of a sudden, not so much fun anymore. Twelve seconds left in a 20 point game, visitor shooting 2. On the first free throw, the kid who was being an ass hammers the guy across the key. Instead of calling a foul, I told him the game was over, and to knock it off. I figured it was good preventative officiating. Game ends, crowd chases us out. We wait 45 minutes to leave, still get yelled at on the way to the car. Got home, wrote up the ejection report. Three days later, the boss calls. Guess what the school said? To the best of my knowledge: 1) We screwed the team by calls travels that were not there because we were biased. 2) The coach did nothing to warrant a T, let alone an ejection. 3) Upon giving the coach his first T with two minutes left and a 9 point deficit, I told his captain that "the game is over." 4) My partner told him to "hit the showers" right after giving him his second T. 5) We talked rash to the crowd. 6) We shot baskets and interrupted their team's preparation for the Varsity game. 7) They did not want either of us at their school again. Guess what school I had the following Friday night on the road? The boss watched the film, so nothing as noted except a couple of smiles from me. He also told me that it didn't matter what the truth was, if we gave them any opening at all to write any of it, we screwed up. He then would not let me get out of the game on Friday. He knew I learned. I was never an angel, but I learned the if you goad a player or coach as an official, you are an unprofessional douchebag. And there are a lot of guys who enjoy the power of the stripes a little too much who do that stuff. And when they get called on it, they almost always lie about it, or tell embellished and exaggerated stories that sometimes get debunked on film pretty easily. I've seen people lose games--and careers--from being unprofessional and getting popped for it. You cannot recover from it, anyway. You'll never get credibility back from it. You can make bad calls, you can have spirited conversations, but once you cross the professionalism line you cannot go back. It also works both ways. I once had a coach complain to the District that I was goading him during a playoff game. The good news--the guy he complained to was at the game and sitting close enough to the bench to know that I completely ignored that coach all night. Never even looked at him. And did a great job. Helped me immensely. I had another coach treat me very unprofessionally later in my career. I refused to work that school my last season; ironically, his team is now struggling and the school and his players are tiring of his act. Unprofessional coaches never help themselves. Bottom line: Show professionalism and class as often as possible. If stuff gets personal, get away from it. Avoid conflicts of interest. Avoid personality conflicts. Do everything you can to steer partners away from it, too, but if they go there anyway, you don't owe them squat if the bus runs them over. They did it to themselves, and life (and the games) can go on without them.