Stop Complaining!

  It’s happened again!  Yes, for the 50th time in the past 50 years, fans are upset about ACC officiating.  All you have to do is log onto any college’s sports message board and you’ll find it.  Vitriol, hate, disgust, smack talk… all aimed at the ACC’s men in stripes.  Some say this year’s officiating has been the worst ever.  Then again, some said that last year, and the year before and so on and so on…

   Are the accusations true?  I don’t think so.  And here’s why:  the game has become impossible to officiate according to the rules.  What was once a no-contact game has become a full-contact game.  Hand-checking, bumping, banging.  Yes, there is inconsistency in calling it.  But officiating is an inconsistent art, not a science.  If officials called every touch foul, games would never end.  Actually, I take that back.  They’d end before halftime, because everyone would have fouled out.

     If, as some claim, the ACC’s officials are bad, where would you propose the powers-that-be find new ones?  The Pac-10, the Big East, the SEC, NAIA?  NBA?  It isn’t a full-time job and never will be.  Unless of course you’re willing to pay another surcharge on your ticket price to foot the bill for full-time officials.

    Then there’s the ACC conspiracy theory:  Duke and Carolina get all the calls because it makes the conference more money.  How exactly does that work?  Don’t you think a larger state school such as NC State or Maryland would pump as much if not more money into the league coffers if their school was a perennial Final Four team?  More concessions, more souvenirs, more, more, more.  I’ve yet to meet or interview an official that has a bias toward or against a team.  My feeling is that it would be pretty noticeable and that ref would not be working in the ACC any longer.

   I do agree that home teams and better teams get more calls.  But that’s a nature vs nurture argument… environment dictates unconscious  or subconscious decisions.  It’s a fact in peewee ball, middle school, high school, college and the pros.

   So next time a call goes against your team, yell at the ref, yell at the tv or yell at the radio if you like.  But you’d be better off yelling at your team to play better.