Why Do We Eat Our Young? Stop Gossiping, Denigrating, Griping and Complaining

By John W. Adams

I have a confession to make. I am a political junkie. I DVR the Sunday talk shows, I devour the daily op-ed pieces in the paper, I watch Bill O’Reilly and Rachel Maddow on TV and I listen to Fox News and the POTUS channels on satellite radio when I am in my car. I guess I think if I am informed, I can make a difference.

At any rate, that obsession with American politics got me interested in a television show called The West Wing. It is a series that ran for seven seasons and chronicled the happenings in the fictional presidency of Jeb Bartlet (Martin Sheen). It had a wonderful cast and during its seventh and final season it focused on the primaries and general election for a successor to the term-limited Bartlet character. About halfway through the final season, there was an episode where Leo McGary (the late John Spencer), the president’s former chief of staff, is tasked with managing the incumbent Democratic Party’s nomination process. There are three viable candidates and the candidates and their staffs have a meeting in the “green room” about an hour before the convention is to begin to iron out some protocol issues about who makes his speeches when and for how long. The meeting turns into a verbal and sometimes physical donnybrook, all of which is being listened to by McGary while standing outside the green room. When McGary is asked by a young volunteer staffer what’s going on in the room, he replies, “They are eating their young.”

I have only been the NCAA national men’s basketball officiating coordinator since April 2008 but it seems to me that we (in the business of basketball officiating) are spending too much time “eating our young.” I don’t mean we are not mentoring and encouraging younger officials (that’s for another column), but rather it seems to me that way too many of the members of our industry spend an inordinate amount of time gossiping, denigrating fellow officials, griping about game fees, complaining about coordinators and in general making what could be a really good business, pretty lousy.

Along with all the other tasks that go along with the job description of the NCAA national coordinator of basketball officiating, I have decided that during my tenure I will do whatever I can to make the business better. Let me suggest that starting on the day you read this column, you do a couple of things: Spend more time studying and reading the rules. It is the best way to build confidence in your ability to handle anything that comes up on the court. Stop and think before you begin a tirade about (pick one):

• “The lousy number of assignments you received from so and so.”

• “You can’t get any breaks in this business.”

• “Did you hear how a fellow official screwed up a play at the end of the big game?”

• “Can you believe that the ABC league cut their travel fees by $200?”

• “I told my guys that if they use one of the new approved signals, they can’t work games for me anymore.”

I am sure there are a few more standard complaints out there, but I hope you get my drift.

From where I sit, this business for most of us started as a way to make some extra money after our real jobs were done for the day. For the vast majority of officials reading this column, that still is the case. Don’t worry about the 50 or so officials at the D-I level who make their living officiating. College basketball officiating was never meant to be a full-time job, but the explosion of both the exposure and the money in the game created a vacuum for high-end officiating expertise. Ten or 15 leagues or conferences were only too eager to try to fill that vacuum by throwing more money at the problem. (That seems to be a current American phenomenon.) Most of you will never get to that level of officiating, so stop whining about fees. If you feel you are underpaid or underappreciated, get out of the business before you ruin it for the rest of us.

All of us have made mistakes in our businesses, managing our families and yes, even while officiating. My best guess is you don’t immediately get on your cell phone and call your five closest business associates and gossip about the bad hire so and so made at the Acme widget company. So how come if some issue pops up in our part-time job community, we are so quick to start the information relay? Next time you feel the urge to talk about another official’s bad luck, call me. Maybe I can talk you off the ledge of anxiety you might have about needing to gloat over someone else’s misfortune.

 Finally, being an official at any level is a privilege. As you move up the officiating ladder and your visibility and notoriety increase, you will be held to higher standards of public behavior. Your language, how you dress, appearances in casinos, behavior in bars after games and the time you spend in airports all will be unfairly scrutinized by the public. It’s something we have to live with, so exceed the expectations of an adoring public whenever you can.

Here’s my promise, starting today: I pledge to personally do a better job in all those areas and I call on the readers of Referee to join me in making a conscious effort to stop “eating our young.” If all of us will head down that road together, it will be good for the game.

John W. Adams is the current NCAA national coordinator for men’s basketball officiating and a former coordinator at the Division I, II and III levels.