July 20, 2017
HIATUS
SportsCentral will be taking a month off to give everyone a breather. The program will return on Thursday, August 10, 5pm on Central First Facebook Page.
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Conference media days, car washing with ESPN, and the beginning of NFL training camps mean football season is here. But not the good kind quite yet.
The good kind of football season when the best teams are decided on the field is still six weeks away. This part of the football season is when serious injuries in practice and preseason games derail promising seasons. This is the part where thousands of “experts” tell you why your team is going to be good or bad, yet most of those experts are just as right or wrong as you or I. Do you want to know why they are wrong? Keep reading.
The main reason so many people can be so wrong in their predictions is they place too much emphasis on past performance to determine future success. Don’t get me wrong, past performance is a factor, but a small one.
Observe the coaching rankings. Most of those rankings are based on what a coach has done in the past. Dabo Swinney has shot up the rankings because he won a national championship. Is he really that much better on June 18, 2017 than he was on June 18, 2016? His value on the open coaching market is, but I think he basically the same coach.
Let’s look at another example, Clay Helton at USC. After he went from interim to permanent head coach, USC lost 5 of their next 6 games (two at the end of 2015 and three of their first four in 2016). Where do you think he was ranked at that time? USC won the next 9 games to finish 10-3 last year and won the Rose Bowl. Where would he be ranked now?
Coaching rankings are harmless, but when they are used to predict how a team will do they are dumb. Most everyone thinks Dan Mullen is the second ranked coach in the SEC. I think he is great. Nobody thinks Mississippi State will challenge Alabama in the West. But, Dan Mullen is the second best coach behind Saban.
To clarify, coaching matters to a team’s success. But the method by which coaches are ranked are not significant to how a team will perform that year. My closing argument is Les Miles. This time last year Coach Miles was on the hot seat, but according to the methodology which is used to rank coaches, Coach Miles “had” to be considered in the top 4 of SEC coaches. He had a national championship, had won over 70% of the SEC games he had coached, we know the resume that had him in the top four. As we know, LSU started 2-2, Miles was fired, and nobody chose to hire him to coach their team this year. I rest my case your honor.
Do yourself a favor, enjoy discussing who the best coaches are, but then completely ignore those conversations as you try to figure out who will will have good seasons this year.
Next week, I will continue to cut through the bull poo that doesn’t matter in forecasting team success. The theme will be, “replacing” players.
HEY REF
This is the second part in a special three part series delving into the LHSAA’s high school football officials.
Welcome back as we continue down the road trying to figure out just how, when and why the quality of those calling high school football games in Louisiana has deteriorated and is there a way to reverse this trend. For those that missed part one please “log” onto jonfineproductions.com and you can access our newsletter from there. As I left off last week I tried explaining the lack of commitment many officials have when it comes to attending meetings.
The LHSAA acknowledges the shortcomings of those willing to skip weekly meetings by its football officials. They’ve even taken the step of demanding that officials attend a certain number of meetings to remain eligible to work regular season varsity games. Those that continue to miss meetings are only degrading the quality of the official that their association puts on the field. I know there are times and events in our personal lives that come up from time to time and make getting to a meeting impossible and I can live with that fact.
But it has not only caused hard feelings among those that make the vast majority of meetings but is has become a direct reason for some of the missed calls during each and every season. The top two reasons I’ve heard mentioned as “reasons” for staying away from the weekly meetings are (1) Many feel it’s just a waste of their time and (2) Since officials are assigned games through an internet account/connection then there’s no other reason to attend.
And there’s the major gripe I have with this new technology that’s been adopted by most if not all associations whether it be high school or college athletics. I’m proud to say I was trained “old school” because we not only understood the science of officiating but we took pride in working together as the third team on the field that particular night. Which of course might make you think I’m saying we were better trained than today’s officials and you’d be right, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
For instance if you’ve got five officials that’ll work a certain game and the only interaction among those five officials is asking where’s the dressing room they’ll use that night then you should understand we’ve got a huge problem here. One of my fondest memories from my first stint of working games in Baton Rouge was Clyde Messenger. Here was a man that took a personal interest and dedication in having our local association becoming and staying the very best in the state. And we were, hands down the very best association year after year.
Clyde was our vice president and responsible for teaching rules and reviewing rules during our weekly meetings. He would also take his VHS camera to JV games and film the crews. These crews were made up of manly one seasoned referee and three young guys who were learning the ropes so to speak. He’d invite the crews he filmed over to his house to study our play coverages and the calls we made. He took his time to explain what we did right and what we didn’t. He then would offer ways to improve our positioning on certain plays and what we needed to do to be in a better spot to insure better coverage.
Now let’s compare the “old” way of teaching the game to young and new officials to the “new” way of helping guys understand the rules that I just experienced this year (2015) from the so called rules guy and trainer of new officials in my first and only year in a new association in south Louisiana. Well I’d been reading and going over the new study guide and had one question had me stumped. I knew it was something simple, probably right in front of me but I was just not finding an answer that I was comfortable with.
Being at the end of my rope I got the phone number to the “Rules Guru” and made a call. I told him I had a simple question, the answer to my question would be a simple one and I was hoping he’d lend an ear and help me understanding a rule. The conversation was a short one since as soon as he reminded me of a situation I heard the bells go off and as I’d said the answer was a very simple one. I thanked him for his time and help.
At our next meeting I made sure to “Thank” the trainer in person because I knew he’d be getting more calls than normal because this was the year that the LHSAA changed their testing procedures and everyone was getting nervous. I was prepared for the typical answer that follows where he’d say “No problem” or “Glad I could help” and so on. But what I got was the biggest blind side hit I’ve ever encountered. He flew into a mini rage saying “You know what scares me? A guy that’s supposed to have 25 years’ experience and he forgot that that rule”!
I didn’t know how to respond. I’ve never been attacked like that in front of other officials. This encounter wasn’t a private conversation at all. No he deliberately made look as though I was as dumb as a rock. As I stumbled for a reply he again goes after me and continues “You’d think you’d know that rule. We all know it, you should know it. How can a man that’s got over 20 years in this business forgetting something so simple”? Well I can tell you how, I’m human and I make mistakes all the time but I prep myself before, during and after each and every game. I’ve found his reactions to be very pervasive in the high school ranks around the Baton Rouge area. It as if an 18 wheeler had run slap over me.
I just kinda stuttered and said “I knew it was a simple answer I just couldn’t find the answer in my rule book”. I felt an inch tall as he went off on me. The biggest taboo in our business is to make sure and never, ever belittle another official for any reason. My biggest shock was the realization that this is the guy that’s charged with getting this association up to speed with the rules and preps them for the test. Some other members who heard what happened told me to just forget it because he probably feels threatened by me. That was a shock to me since I’ve never threatened another official no matter if he’s got 30 years’ experience or 30 minutes.
I came from a world where every official did what they could to help a fellow official. Making your association the best only happens when each member helps EVERY member that’s working and studying hardto become the best they can be. I get the feeling that if these new brand of officials were on the Titanic they’d be the only ones in the life boats. No women or children would’ve survived since they only think of themselves and not the bigger picture.
Today’s officials I’m sad to report are only interested in their own careers. They have egos bigger than the Super Dome. It’s all about them. They don’t have “we” in their vocabularies. They can’t understand the concept of the chain and the weakest link and so on. I won’t even attempt to go into the economic aspect of officiating.
The “old” way of training gave crews that feeling that they were in effect THE BEST. The “old” way wasn’t something you did on your own. The “old” way made you part of a team of officials and not a lone stripped shirt. We didn’t just feel as though we were the best because we were the best! How can I make that statement? That’s easy, we all felt this way because of the many hours we studied and worked together. We dedicated ourselves to the crew concept. All members of the crew had a mindset of “We get it right as a crew and we get it wrong as a crew”. Having been warned four years ago that I should forget that concept and just deal with what I do and not worry about anybody else is contrary to the way officiating should be.
The difference and comparison from those days in how we committed ourselves to working and doing what needed to be done as one so that we’d be the best is day and night with those that put on the striped shirts today.
Next week I’ll wrap things up and if you’ve got any questions, PLEASE SEND THEM TO MY ATTENTION here or you can email me at; dennismdearie@cox.net.
Till next week…
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