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playa2
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Fans, refs want the truth ... so let's give it to them
Aug. 1, 2007
By Tony Mejia
CBS SportsLine.com Staff Writer
Sure hope the NBA office is using its time wisely while it waits for Tim Donaghy to turn himself in. Somehow, David Stern and his no-longer-so-merry band of officials have to make the best of a bad situation. If they want to best squash harsh feelings, they have to provide a little restitution.
Len Elmore, attorney, basketball commentator and President of the NBA Retired Players Association, thinks polygraph tests for referees should become standard practice. If some preventive measures to keep the game from being sabotaged sound drastic, so be it.
David Stern must realize that hiding the refs from the media only makes things worse. (Getty Images)
"Going forward, the public needs some type of confirmation that there's no one doing something they're not supposed to do," said Elmore, who played for five teams from 1974-84. "Restoring the public trust and the honor of our sport is most important. There's a law that forbids employers from subjecting their employees which can't be waived, so this has to be something the referees union submits to voluntarily. The institution has had its credibility damaged and this can go a long way in helping to restore it."
Elmore is right. The biggest losers in all of this are the referees. The viewing public will get over this betrayal. Many have thought something has been amiss for years, and a whole generation of us grew up watching superstars get all the calls. The NBA, a viable source of entertainment, will continue to make money and recover from this, sooner than later if Donaghy's situation does turn out to be an isolated incident.
The referees don't get to recover. They're part of the background, only stepping into the spotlight when they're being booed. Seriously, the majority of cheers referees ever hear are sarcastic ones.
The household names are the ones who screw up the most, who make themselves recognizable by becoming a part of the game. Because they're forbidden to talk to the media, they have no accountability.
That makes it much easier for fans to harbor animosity toward them. They're a faceless entity. A uniform and a whistle.
The problem is their profession now has a face. It's Donaghy's.
"On one hand, point-shaving has always been in the back of fans' minds, but it's usually been players, from CCNY to Alex Garza, Boston College and Arizona State. This is totally different," Elmore said. "We need to be able to trust the refs. There has to be integrity there. The overwhelming majority are standup guys. It's in the best interest of the game for the referees to volunteer their support. It's their livelihood being attacked."
The referees union needs to defend itself and petition Stern to allow media access to them. Players get a 10-minute cooling off period before locker rooms open and they are asked to discuss a game's events. It's frustrating that they have to answer questions about the officiating with canned "no comment" responses for fear of financial repercussions.
Referees can easily answer whatever questions the media asks for a five-minute period shortly after games. Think of the insight that can come of it.
I've had off-the-record conversations with referees in hotel lounges that were flat-out fascinating. Don't you think it would be interesting to hear officials defend themselves on how Shaquille O'Neal is whistled, or Dwyane Wade?
Wouldn't it be great to hear a referee comment on the on-court banter that winds up affecting the game? It would certainly add color to a sport whose television ratings indicate the need for it.
The NBA makes officials available early in the season to discuss rules changes and thought processes. Why can't a crew chief be available after every single game?
The referees should demand it, if only because they're about to be taken for a ride and painted from head-to-toe with the scrutiny brush. Stern hiding them from the public isn't going to ease matters.
"With respect to transparency, you know, I'm going to wait for the summer to yield the results as a fan and the like," Stern said at his June 24 press conference. "I think it's important that our referees, who have a very difficult job, you know, 70 away games every year, going into a place where there seems to be unanimity of agreement about their competency, not their integrity, but their competence. We've got people complaining from both teams about how the referees called a bad game against them.
"But we'll continue to work with our referees to get their accuracy level up. We'll continue to work, I mean, to be transparent in the sense that our fans know how the system works. We will do that. We're not transparent enough."
That needs to change, immediately, and it hasn't. We have not heard from any current officials, presumably because the NBA has forbid them from any commentary. Plenty of former referees are talking though.
"David Stern doesn't have any interest in easing the burden of the officials," Mike Mathis, an NBA official from 1976-2002, told the Newark Star-Ledger. "He wants to control the players union and the ref union and the entire world. He should stop concerning himself with all that and look at what's going on. Just don't give lip service to the referees. They carry the integrity of the league. That's the lesson in all this.
"Now we got a disaster because it has been breached. It's great to sell shoes and jerseys and sell out arenas, but don't make your concern for the officials just a sidelight."
Stern's comments towards his officials at the Donaghy press conference were filled with double-talk.
"By and large, they get it right most of the time," he said. "They get it wrong sometimes. Sometimes they perhaps carry themselves in a way that is not as modest as we would prefer, but they do their darnedest to get the result right. Frankly, I'm more concerned, rather than chastising them, with reassuring them that I am committed to protecting them while at the same time making sure that we keep our covenant with our fans."
If I were a referee, I'm not sure how I'd take this comment. It feels dismissive. That union has a lot of thinking and plotting to do, because drastic action must be taken to restore their reputation.
Be it unfair or unfortunate, that's the situation.
If I was a referee, and I was poised to take the fall for all this, I'd want the opportunity to prove I was clean. I'd like a voice.
Considering the witch hunt Donaghy may have single-handedly turned the reffing game into, even taking a polygraph wouldn't sound all that outlandish.
JAMES DOLAN on Isiah : He's a good friend of mine and of the organization and I will continue to solicit his views. He will always have strong ties to me and the team.
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8/4/2007 9:26 AM