GETTING THE CALLS

I don’t usually complain about sports officials because I know firsthand what a difficult job they have. Everybody expects them to be perfect from the first time they walk onto the court, and show steady improvement with every game.  In reality sports officials biggest quality is being consistent, getting obvious call right all of the time and getting the difficult calls right most of the time.  There is no substitute for game experience so when I arrived at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum last Wednesday Night for the Wake Forest Duke Game and saw the crew of Tim Kelly, Tim Nester and Mike Eades, I felt confident that we would have a well officiated game. After all these three guys have 100’s of games under their belt and go deep into the NCAA Tournament each year. They know how to officiate a basketball game.

                                                                     Referee Tim Kelly with Coach Jeff Bzdelik

I know from experience that when one member of the crew has a bad game the other two members of the crews pick him up. Rarely have I ever seen all three officials have a terrible game all at the same time. But that is exactly what happened last Wednesday Night at the Joel Coliseum and Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski took full advantage of the situation.  Coach K is known far and wide for working the officials and in this game he began working this crew early and got a number of critical calls late in the game.

From just about the opening tip, Coach K began working the officials and complaining about every call. The deeper into the game we got the more obvious it became that the lobbying that Coach K had done early was paying off late.  Even in the biggest games most basketball fans have some Idea what the call is when the ref blows the whistle. They may not agree with the call, but they have some idea what the call is and why it was made. Not on Wednesday Night, when the whistle blew, we had no Idea what the call was going to be.

Do I think these three officials walked into the Joel Coliseum with any preconceived plan to screw Wake Forest and help Duke, of course not? Do I think they had a bad night, yes definitely? Do I think that they allowed Coach K to get into their head? Yes. Do I think that Coach K’s constant ranting influenced their call? Yes. Do I think the better team won the game? No, for on this night the Demon Deacons had more talent and certainly more Heart.  Had it not been for a few questionable calls, the 75-70 score may have been in favor of the Deacs rather than the Blue Devils.  Tim Kelly, Mike Eades and Tim Nester are honorable men and very good basketball officials, and should not be judged by this one game, but as a die-hard Demon Deacon Fan, it is still hard to swallow.