"Terraholm" hotmail.com> wrote in
news:5u2odnF1fkbfmU1@mid.individual.net:

It's a very tough job, often harder than playing. Everyone has a bad day
at the office, and I realize refs inevitably make mistakes. What bugs me
are cases where it's pretty clear a ref is retaliating with the whistle
when they have to be above it all, or they're clearly unbalanced in their
calls, not handling fouls in the last two minutes of a close game well,
and I think the lack of transparency is a big problem. If the refs are
doing a good job, and the league is doing a good job monitoring them,
then lay the facts out on the table. I don't see why the players can
have all of their fouls published, but the refs don't get the fouls they
call published.

In the case of Donaghy, the league would have done itself a favor by
putting his stats out there earlier -- if I recall right, his swing from
being a whistle swallower to a whistle blower pretty much coincided with
his gambling meltdown.

I'm curious, and it isn't clear from the article, whether the refs are
judged not only on the individual calls but on the game. As anyone
knows, more than half of the plays of most games involve a reasonable
judgment call that could go either way. The problem starts to crop up
when one player or team gets a majority of calls in their favor, or when
the standards suddenly seem to change in the last couple minutes of a
game. Reviewing each call doesn't necessarily mean that you fix that
issue, since you can get the calls technically right but completely
unbalanced.

At any rate, I think the calls on a team by team basis during the regular
season generally even out, though not necessarily on a player by player
basis. What is insane, though, is the league's "method" of assigning
refs for the playoffs. I'll never see the value of putting out crews of
refs for the top games who clearly aren't the top guys, and mixing up the
composition of squads to upset whatever consistency you might have.

Part of my feelings here, I'll admit, are affected by Pistons history.
They have traditionally not been a superstar team -- Grant Hill is about
the closest I can think of to a true marquee player -- and they generally
haven't gotten the benefit of the calls that go the way of, say Bird with
his shuffle-shuffle travelling fakes before his shots, Jordan and Carter
with their steps, etc. I'll admit, though, that the current club
probably gets the benefit of the doubt on a bunch of calls due to their
veteran status, and also because they've played so much together that
they're a known quantity.

I haven't read that, but there was a good article about Strom about 15
years ago. Here's some of the stuff at random:

"In 1988, when USA Today polled the NBA's players and coaches to choose
the league's best referee, Strom won in a landslide.... His supporters
mostly cited his consistency and fairness"

"Most referees approach the business with some kind of fear - a fear of
losing control, a fear of not being respected, of showing you're too
human, of having anyone perceive you as being biased. Earl seemed to
have got beyond all those fears."

"Many college officials couldn't handle [brutal NBA crowds in the 50s]
either they "swallowed" their whistles or quit after a game or two. But
Strom thrived on the challenge - he always loved to be right... and
showed from the start that he wouldn't be a "homer." [Article goes on to
describe Strom calling Cousy for blatant walking in the Boston Garden].

"Cousy comes up to me and says 'Hey Earl, in the Pottstown YMCA that's
walking. When I do it here, it's not walking.' So I say, 'Bob, if you
don't get away from me I'm going to nail you." [Cousy doesn't back off,
Strom tosses him.] "They win by 20 and we need a police escort to get
out of there. It was a hell of a debut. But you know what, I earned
Cousy's respect."

[Over time, Strom becomes too tightly wound and loses control. Then in
the mid 80s he starts to mellow]. "In his last seasons, he called fewer
technical fouls (only ten or twelve per year, by his estimate) preferring
to dose an offender's ire with a stern avuncular warning.

"After the NBA's coaches and general managers recommended that Strom be
used as an instructor, the administration vetoed their proposal....
Darrell Garettson told the assembly... [Strom] has a unique way of
handling a game -- and it's so unique I can't teach it."

"Strom contends that Garettson recruits too many incoming officials by
college reputation rather than judgement or professional aptitude, and
that he fails to give them the tools the need to improve. 'I was taught
how to handle certain players, how you handle fights, and this isn't
taught today to young referrees."

-- "The Right Call" by Jeff Coplon, The New Yorker 10/01/90

Interestingly, not being afraid of being seen as biased got Strom the
reputation for been fair and consistent. Also, I pulled the bits about
the league not teaching refs the bigger issues of running a game, which I
think is the bigger reason behind robot refs. I think if the league did
a better job of teaching the game, and wasn't so afraid of letting guys
like Strom teach them how to think while they reffed, then revealing the
refs' stats wouldn't be an issue.