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Overheard from ghosts on the south smoking porch at Reynolds….
Gentlemen, may we remind you that there are two kinds of sports fans…. those whose ‘perspective’ is based on playing/coaching and those whose ‘perspective’ is based on watching.
Given the class systems inherent in all societies, while the former may generally be considered as superior and the later inferior, there is a high level of mobility and interaction between the classes.
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It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking basketball, football, baseball or whatever else.
Among those who played/coached… among the cardinal sins is this one — “Don’t blame the officials when you win or lose.”
As a player you’re taught/coached from the first practice to understand the following….
1. Officials/Referees/Umpires are essential to the game. The game would not be “The Game” without them.
2. Officials are never perfect and make mistakes. Some mistakes are errors of omission, some are errors of judgement, some are just plain dumbass, stupid mistakes.
3. Officials never – ever determine the outcome of the game…. for one simple reason… as a player and as a team you didn’t play a perfect game either and those mistakes first created the position where the officials’ mistakes could effect the outcome of the game.
4. When the game is over, win or lose… the next day you start preparing for the next game.
5. Some nights everything goes wrong…. in which case… just push the “Ignore” button before you take your shower.
Coach Wooten… ya’ll remember him…. when asked about his two-minute drill, reportedly said something like… “I don’t really do that… If my guys just do what I tell them to do, we’ll be so far ahead at that point in the game as to not need one”. The same answer could be applied on those nights when the whistle just ain’t blowing your way.
To be successful on the court or the field, one of the first two things players learn is “how to properly handle the officials’ bad calls and how to handle bad officials”. (Definitely not the same thing) Otherwise, you get to play callyourownfoul/pickup ball for the rest of your career.
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While it’s quite okay to say… “Wow … that guy took five steps and the dumbass ref ten feet away saw it all and swallowed his whistle.”… And it’s okay to say ‘Their O-line is chop blocking or holding on every play”…
But to say at the same time, “…. the dumbass ref on that play …cost us the game.”, especially for those who played, well…that’s completely against the “rules of the game”.
When some sports fans consistently rant about officials’ bad calls or no-calls determining the outcome of games, or even worse… get together who other like-minded sports fans and manufacture conspiracy theories about how the refs are out to get us or the league office always sends us the worse refs who hate us…
To put it politely… let’s just say … some fans might as well have turned their team cap around backwards and pulled their shirt tails out ….which invariably creates “some degree of separation” from the guys who keep their caps on straight and their shirt tails in.
To be less than polite… one might say… some fans might be wearing t-shirts that say “I know it all but never played the game”.
Unfortunately, what frequently happens next… given the weak vocabulary skills of sports fans in general… words or phrases like ‘not knowledgeable’ or ‘un-intelligent’ or ‘ignorant’ or ‘an idiot’ with respect to the subtleties or nuances or even the “rules” of the game might enter the conversation. And whatever the retort, it’s typically as deficit, if not more, in it’s choice of words.
Needless to say …. vocabulary skills are even worse late at night after an especially tough loss.
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No one ever questioned the others love for their team or passion for the sport. Those would be fighting words…. and rightfully so.
The “SFN Bar” is big enough for every one… provided everybody keeps either their caps on straight or their shirt tails in and understands why they should do.
Otherwise… winners hang with winners and losers can leave town.
Bartender… a round for the house and send the tab over to Dan Allen Drive please.