#431 What Coaches, Players, & Fans don't know about Officiating

One of the questions I have for you, I'm going to put the coaching hat on right now and kind of break down the refereeing side you're gonna give me your opinion on things so a lot of times i mean we hear about there's a shortage of referees and like we've got parents and coaches and players that mistreat the referees because of a lack of understanding of one thing or another so here's what i want to know from a coaching perspective because i'm trying to gain an understanding and be a little bit more like just be a better example overall especially in the public and in the community so in the basketball community i should say so What is one of the biggest things you think causes the frustrations between the fans, the coaches, the players, and the referees? Like a decision a referee makes, a call a referee makes, what is the biggest problem? Is it a lack of understanding of the rules? Is it the referees truly might not be confident in the call that they're making? Is it a lack of explanation of the call? What do you think is the biggest issue with the mistreating of the referees and what's essentially causing that referee shortage?

I mean, it's a long list.

It's a long conversation.

I think you can point to a lot of different things, and you can look at what officials are doing wrong.

You can look at what parents and fans are doing wrong.

You can look at what coaches are doing wrong, and we're all part

of the issue,

I think.

Just so I could refine my answer for your audience, are we speaking more or less in the AAU circuit, in the youth space? Because there are different levels that have different kind of cultures within it.

So let's, that's a good question.

Let's talk about the high school basketball scene and the AAU scene because they're the same age groups, I should say.

So they're, I mean, I know the levels of it are a little bit different and the intricacies are a little different, but I coach AAU at the 17U level, but a lot of these kids are obviously playing at the local high schools around here.

So I'd be curious to kind of tailor it to that.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Well, I'll start with accountability, just with referees, you know, instead of me pointing the finger at coaches first, which I love to do,

and

fans as well, because I think they're the majority issue.

It's got to start with refs and just better training we need, right? And we need officials that are in better shape.

If you're speaking in the AAU scene, the travel ball, the youth, You know, it's a different way they assign games.

There's so many games.

So you have to fill those games with, you know, there's more games than there are refs, right? And basketball just keeps evolving and growing.

So you're trying to fill the games versus fill it with the high-level talent every game.

Sure.

The reason why I asked you that question is, what are we talking about, which level? Because if we're talking about college, well, there's no national shortage.

There's more college officials than ever.