August 3, 2017
JACKETS RADIO
DENHAM SPRINGS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL IS BACK ON THE AIR!
Broadcasts will air on Family Radio-91.9 FM-Baton Rouge, starting at 6:00 pm Friday nights with Sport-n-Center Jackets Warmup. All broadcasts can also be heard on the Internet at JonFineProductions.com (click Listen Live on the Denham Springs Football PBP page). The first broadcast is Friday, September 1, as the Jackets play host to Hammond High School. We’ll have more information in ensuing weeks in this newsletter.
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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THE WIZARDRY OF OS By Scott Osborne Assistant Basketball Coach and Head Swimming Coach at Central High The question around town since last Friday has been, “Why close practice Coach O? Why?” To confuse the situation more, LSU is producing and releasing video from practice, Coach O is updating the depth chart, and practice will open up again on August 21. Around town people are having a tough time understanding the rationale. Let me give it a shot. The first clue is choosing to release a short video highlight package from each day. This clue tells me two things. First, Coach Orgeron is not paranoid. Releasing the videos are good for recruiting and public relations. Fans are starved for any morsel of information from camp. In past years, fans would watch every 6 second twitter or vine from camp 3 times each just to see LSU’s quarterback throw a pass. The fans still get that just not from a local reporter. Second, I think Coach Orgeron wants to control the message, similar to a politician. Early in camp, things can look bad. Etling could look off while Brennan looks great. Social media and the real media would understandably create a huge buzz. The offense could look terrible with a new system which would send LSU fans into hysterics for sure… I know I would lose my mind. Look at the second clue, and you will better see what I am seeing. Coach Orgeron is giving updates he does not need to give. Practice is closed, yet we know Jacoby Stevens has moved to wide receiver (a great fit for Canada’s offense). In the past we would here from Coach Miles that Frank Herron was a beast and then he would not play in the game. Coach Orgeron is comfortable enough to let us know that Teuhama is not practicing and the new depth chart as a result. Again, I see these actions as an attempt to control the message. Orgeron is comfortable with everyone knowing what is happening, but he doesn’t want people talking about how the team is looking yet. When LSU was at its peak between 2003 and 2012, the Tigers had a mental edge over their opponents. That evaporated the last few years as the ineptitude of the offense took over the culture of the program. The final clue is the decision to have two players wear the number 18. LaCouture said the idea came from the desire to bring the offense and defense together. For a player to sense a need to bring those sides together, there must be something there. I don’t think any observer of LSU football would deny that the culture needed to change around the program. Shorter, more intense practices during the season was part of that shift. Hiring Canada was a part of that. The fans are easy to win over. The players appear to have been won over. The last step is for Orgeron to make the players believe in their teammates when times are tough, and that is why I think practice is closed until the 21st. The beginning of camp is where Orgeron can control the tempo of practice and the message as the Tigers develop their identity. High school teams go to camp to get away from everyone and find their identity. The media would not ruin that, but this is a decision made for the right reasons. It might not be the right decision, but the reasons are not paranoia. Hopefully, the Tigers are ready for their Soft Opening on August 21, before their Grand Opening on September 2.
HEY REF
And the winner is? Let me be frank and right to the point; after three weeks of asking coaches, parents, players and fans to send to this writer their questions and share their concerns in defining the problems between the LHSAA, its football officials and the many coaches in our area there are no winners. It’s not even close as the “finger” pointing is even worse than I’d imagined.
President Trump has for what seems an eternity told the nation that he plans on building a wall on our southern border to keep illegal immigrants out of America. This country has a huge problem with ILLEGALS and just building a wall even though I agree it’s something we need will not solve the problem by a long shot. In ancient times building a wall to keep undesirables out of their country was the reason given by the Chinese. “The Great Wall” is one of the eight wonders of the world and my personal favorite. If there was an election and given the chance then without hesitation my vote’s for their wall.
Walls are needed, no doubt. There’s a place and time to erect walls and so on. But there are three walls that have to come down. The big three I’ve found here in south Louisiana and the ones I’m talking about are the those walls between the LHSAA and its football officials, the ever present one that separates coaches and officials and the one that’s the tallest and the one that’s doing the most damage and harm is the wall between fellow football officials.
I’ve had the pleasure of writing this column for over five years. It was started as an idea I had and presented it to Jon Fine that there needs to be an avenue where fans could ask questions concerning the differences in rules and penalty enforcements between high school, college and professional football. In those early years we had lean weeks where no questions came my way. And those lean times came at the very oddest of times, during the season.
But we were reaching out with a new venture and I’m very appreciative to those that wrote in. If I didn’t know the answer to someone’s question I’d find it and get it out to those that were interested in knowing why the officials walked off yardage Friday night but come Saturday afternoon the SEC guys did something that was in many instances completely opposite. Well, in the football world many times the three different leagues write their rules to their liking and don’t on many occasions ask for an opinion from the other two ruling bodies.
Knowing the rules in a minor thing in all three leagues simply because the rules are very much in tune with each other’s rulebook. But the strictest emphases, by all means the main objective every official is concerned with and so are each leagues rule writers is being correct in the enforcement of all violations of said rulebook. So there are no walls so to speak between the job of officiating and correctly enforcing violations.
With all that junk out of the way the first wall that has to come down is the one in place between the LHSAA and its officials. Don’t doubt me on this one or any of the other two because you’ll lose. As many readers are well aware of my first entry to officiating football for the LHSAA was in 1979. Health issues took me out of the lineup after nearly 20 years. A ten year gap lies between my first and second trips on the field.
I was told many things had changed and if I wanted to continue working games I’d better just shut my mouth and do MY JOB, not work well inside of the crew concept I was used to but a single nomad if you will. I felt that “wall” and tried to believe it didn’t exist but I was terribly wrong. Once I was told that some of the newly “seasoned” officials felt “THREATENED” by my return. The atmosphere in this new world of officiating between members of the crew on the field that night disgusts me and things will continue to rot unless the LHSAA and its member associations get down to some very serious talks and fix this unacceptable inner hatred amongst both entities.
So now of course that leads to the second wall; hatred and mistrust among officials. The difference in the so called “old days” and this new world of watch me doing everything by myself is as wide as the universe on many Friday nights. I was trained by a man that has no equal when the subject and job is WORKING a football game and his name was Clyde Messenger. His dedication to the Baton Rouge Association will never be displayed again in this environment of “ME-ISM”. I’ve said it so many times that without a doubt my faithful readers know what’s coming next; “We worked as a CREW. We get it RIGHT as a CREW and we get it WRONG as a crew”!
Even before a chip is taken from this wall each official must admit and have the mindset that there isn’t any other member of their association that’s better or worse than they are. It was Clyde that got me to open my rulebook every year during the NCAA Basketball Championship. I didn’t understand what he told me very early in my career about getting to know the rules and how to enforce them. He just said to me quietly; “If you continue to study the rules one day a light will go off in your head and you’ll understand why I’m telling you that you’re not as bad as you were in your last game and you’re not as good as you’ll be for your next game.
Sadly the last “WALL” is the tallest and the worse. The wall between coaches and officials seems to get higher and higher each year. It basically comes down to the lack of respect either group has for the other. A quick example; the team on my sideline was just 5 points down but they had the ball and were driving. A long pass to the opposite sideline is complete with the player going out of bounds and stopping the clock. On first down they try a long pass to the same receiver but he’s interfered with and a flag is dropped.
Just a few seconds remain but this time they throw high and to my side. Both players stopped, waited, then together they jump but the ball bounces off their hands out of bounds. Of course they want interference but neither kept the other from trying to catch the ball. As I’m going back up to the line I hear “Hey Ref, you must be FU
BLIND!! Don’t you know what pass interference looks like”? I stopped dead in my tracks thinking a coach was just blowing off some steam. I continued looking to see who could’ve said it and one player bowed up at me like the cock of the walk with that little smile and half the team began to laugh.
I’m not a bad guy so I give him a chance to “right” this situation as I ask him “What’d you say”? I thought he’d answer like 99% of the players answer when in this situation, you know “I’m sorry Mr. Ref, I didn’t say a word” or something along those lines. But he didn’t say a word just looked, smiled and led the team on a louder laugh. I asked again and he continues to laugh so he lost his last chance to make things right. None of the coaches who were next to him told him anything so I sent my little gold rag up about 100 feet and said “Yes, I do know what pass interference looks like. Do you know what a personal foul looks and/or sounds like”?
And the coach’s reaction is to this day burned into my brain. After telling my white hat what had happened and what the penalty is I went to the sideline. I knew the reception I was about to receive and this coach came unglued. I thought we were in the seventh game of the World Series. I let him get it off his chest since not a single coach or player told him what his player had said. No player or coach explained that the kid was given three chances to apologize but he continued his total disrespect for the game. I didn’t take it personal but there’s a line that player crossed and he was given three chances to get on the other side of the line but he refused.
As we’re getting ready to run the next play I turned toward the field and I hear the coach continue that he’d asked the player what he said and was told by him that he didn’t say a thing. This is the third and most dangerous “WALL”. Coaches must control of their players and teach them the proper way to conduct themselves in public. I had the option of throwing this kid out of the game and off the field. But I felt it was more important for him to remain on the sideline and not utter another word. Most of us have kids and the one thing that has to be engraved into their mindset is to show respect.
There’s a total lack of respect for game officials by coaches and I’m sad to say and agree that there’s a total lack of respect by the majority of officials toward coaches. If either party wants to deny that fact them we’ll never start on the road to bringing down the tallest and most destructive wall in not only high school sports but all sports on all levels…
Till next week…
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