By Les Tan/Red Sports
Jurong West Sports Complex, Wednesday, March 25, 2009 – Rookie umpiring since the start of the National B Division Basketball Championships is making some parent supporters and coaches see red.
On Monday, in a girls game between Unity and Yuying Secondary, a call by an umpire was enough to make the Unity coach, not the calmest of coaches to begin with, walk across the court to yell at the umpire.
On Wednesday, at a point in the game where Raffles Girls’ School were trailing Woodgrove, irate RGS parents berated the umpires for their calls. When told to calm down by the umpire, the parent told the umpire twice, while pointing a finger at her: “You better watch your behaviour!”
With the decision to cram most school sports into the first five months of this year, the lack of experienced umpires to call games at national championship level is becoming apparent. The A, B and C Divisions, plus the primary school competitions, are going on at the same time. In previous years, the C Division championship was held after the June holidays.
However, yelling at rookie umpires doesn’t solve the problem either. The sight of a middle aged man yelling at a young girl is not something that anyone wants to see.
Rookie umpires only become experienced umpires when they get to call games. And the only practice they will get – whether parents, coaches and players like it or not – is to call school games.
An irate parent starts video taping the officials. (Photo 1 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
Another upset parent approaches the umpires table to complain… (Photo 2 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
… and continues to vent his frustrations. (Photo 3 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
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Why cram school sports into the first 5 months of the year?
Well I dont think they should even use these rookie referees. I am bballer myself and i have experienced losing close games by such bad calls from these rookie refs. I dont think these rookie refs should be trained by using such major competitions as their “Training grounds”. They should be trained under some other competitions and not in such major competition. Schools pay money for refree and my question is are the money the schools paid for to get some bs rookie refrees to refree such major competitions?
Referee’s decision is final. but what if the referees make so many bad calls to the point where the game is destroyed? how much longer do we have to put up with this? they cheat on game time. dont make calls. biased. no this is not fiction. it is 100% happening and so real. we need FIBA to ban them. BAS is not doing anything.
Give the ref a break! PLEASE! Parents!
as a player, playing to referee’s call should reasonably be the way on court. as indeed, there’s much nth we can do to alter a referee’s decision. we’ll have to respect it.
nonetheless, it is not an excuse for us to compromise on referee’s professionalism.
think about it from a player’s perspective, teams train countless months just for the season.
We cannot deny that referee’s “style” of referee-ing indirectly affects the game. and thus it is unfair for players if referee’s calls are not appropriate.
however, i must emphasize that throughout my experience on court (though not too long ><), i’ve encountered referees who are professional.
maybe “inexperienced” referees should get more “practicals” to get used to the fast paced actions on court. but such competitions, important to teams, should not be risked being treated as one.
THE PARENTS ABOVE ARE PATHETIC,SERIOUSLY.I WOULDNT HAVE MUCH TO SAY IF THE PARENTS ABOVE USES A NICER TONE TO CONFRONT THE REF.MR AND MRS,YOURE NOT PERFECT EITHER. EVERYONE IN THIS WHOLE WIDE GLOBE MAKES MISTAKES !SO PLEASE DON’T ACT LIKE YOURE SO RIGHT WHEN YOURE NOT AT ALL.OR SHOULD I SAY THE PARENTS ABOVE ARE TOO CAUGHT UP WITH THEIR OWN BELIEFS TO ACCEPT OTHERS.ARE THE PARENTS EVEN QUALIFIED TO JUDGE REF MISTAKES? MUST THEY STOOP TO SUCH LOW DESPICABLE BEHAVIOUR TO LECTURE THE REF BY VIDEO TAPING THE REF. IS THIS HOW THEY TEACH THEIR KID…………….
All this talk about rookie umpires is making wrong calls is dumb. Seriously, I don’t think the parent supporters could do a better job anyway. The thing is rookie umpires are called rookies for a reason. They are inexperienced. They are a greenhorn in the business. And these parent supporters are too fast to point out their mistakes. I say these verbal intimidation from the parent supporters must stop.
If these acts are allowed to continue, very soon we’ll see someone get hurt. The best way to stop this is to kick in some serious disciplinary measures. Lets say a rookie umpire makes a questionable call. Parent supporter gets irritated. Parent supporter then hurls verbal abuse to rookie umpire. An official should dismiss that particular parent supporter from the sidelines. Because if the parent supporter stays at the sidelines, it will allow him/her to pressurize the rookie umpire into making decisions that may seem biased. And what happens if the rookie umpire does make a biased call when under pressure? Of course the parent supporters from the other team will spot this injustice and the drama will start over. It is a vicious cycle and it has to end!
Before I’m done typing this comment, I’d like to leave a thought so that all the critics that have come down hard on these rookie umpires may ponder upon. We are so quick to criticize these teenagers once we notice a mistake. But what we often fail to notice is what great decisions they have made before making that one particular mistake. So the next time , before we lash out those hurtful words towards these teenagers, lets be reminded that they are only human, and so are we.
I believe the referees are already doing their best. Being a referee is not an easy job. And i doubt singapore have any full time referees so all the referees either are working or studying. majority have to get off just to go down to help cause there’s seriously not enough referees.
Having so many matches a day at so many venues. there’s about 9 venues of matches going on per day according to the fixtures posted. which means at least a total of about 40-50 referees is needed per day. and the timings are all in the afternoon. And the pay is also not a lot as said by someone.
I believe the inexperienced ones have to be given a chance too. I do understand that it will lead to wrong calls. But it will still be a fair game. There will definetely be human errors. Hence to minmize the wrong calls, maybe they can allocate the inexperienced ones to primary schools games and c’div zonals first. For a platform for them to learn and improve.
Bad call or not, a referee’s decision is final. Just play the game! Bad calls are a part of it. Parents’ who do know that won’t complain (much), parents’ who don’t shouldn’t really say anything. I feel video taping the referee is a bit out of line. What in the world will it be used for?
Perhaps they should come up with some system like for example the referee’s salary will be given according to how well they judge the game.
With such unprofessional sight going on, I’m absolutely speechless how is Sg going to be a good host for the upcoming YOG?
Yes, the coaches, parents, spectators etcetc are at fault too for reprimanding the referees. At least in the basic aspects of mannerism, the referees should not talk back because that shows how unopen they are about comments.
In order for one to really improve, referees should be encouraged for good calls and be aware of bad calls too. A survey can be issued in order to know what are the public’s views.
I don’t see how teams are going to focus and really nurture on basketball skills. Such behaviour is utterly disappointing.
Even if people do make an effort to praise the referees for good calls, sometimes it may seen as a form of sarcasism.
Such problem has existed for years, if BAS or referees themselves do not want to put in their part, their effort to improve, I don’t see why we should reward them in the end.
If this is to be encouraged, it is conveying a very bad message to the future generations and the image on Sg itself.
If we can’t even look into the matter and come up with a solution istead of complaining, it is really going to affect everyone as a whole.
Perhaps ideas and solutions can be suggested and put up for a toll and be brought up to the organisers.
We shouldn’t discourage the rookie referees anymore and compromise on our part too. I believe that encouragements can make them more concentrated in the match and not focus on holding the grudge in them against another.
I hope something really can be done. Let’s not create the barrier and isolate the referees cause being referees they’re not robots or wonder people. We should all understand that it’s hard to give good judgements all the time when so many things are happening at the same time.
Same too, as referees they should put in their best effort and that benefits everyone. Maybe they even can have a “Best referee of the week” award or something like that.
Well, I’ll look forward to positive feedbacks and changes.
🙂
its not easy to be a ref , some fouls are not call on RGS too . i was present on that game , i do think parents can talk nicely other than shouting at them . they think when they voice out , ref start calling fouls for the respective team . if the family support groups do make too much voice , i do think coming up with a rule to give technical fouls to the school is important , so parents will think twice before they shout anything .
Hello,
Regarding the problem of poor umpiring, i think something should be done so as to improve the standard of basketball in singapore.
Firstly, I’ve noticed that refrees that are engaged for the national interschool championship are either inexperienced or experienced. I understand that every game has a experienced and inexperience refree, so that the experienced refree can guide the inexperience one. However, isn’t this unfair to the players on court since this increase the chances of wrong calls?
Secondly, a lot of refrees and table officials seem to be umpiring for the sake of umpiring. It has been observed several times that officials tally scores wrongly, raise the wrong foul number, didn’t stop time/24sec. I personally feel that these officials do not respect the players and coaches at all.
Lastly, the interschool championships is a platform for future national players to gain experience. If the kind of officials they get are not up to standard, would they be interested in higher level basketball? It would probably cause their passion to die down i guess.
The worst game was the one a couple of years back during the C Div semi between New Town and RI. The clock just went off secs before the final whistle and the ref randomly “randomly added” tens of secs and re-set the clock which eventually cost New Town a place in the final.
C’mon, the referees are not THAT bad. At least they’re trying their best, its not like they’re biased or what. It’s really no easy being a referee and i think they have done a good job up till now.
and ya, spectator can also be given T. however many referees here choose to be even more “bias” when coaches, teachers (usually not players but now parents) question their calls.
they r in the mist of a game and there is no way that they can admit mistake and uncall a foul. some referees have so much pride that deter them from admitting that they r wrong
first of all, i must agree that being referee is never easy. players can be subsituted but not referee. u play 1 game a day but the referee usually will call for 2 n table for 2.
secondly they r paid 20 for refereeing and 10 for table (2007 rate) so not a big sum, so they are also vulunteering their time.
ok back to players n coach pt of view, we train so hard, esp some more established teams, for 3 years but ur hard work is PUNISHED but poor calls?how can u swollow it when ur 3 yrs effort is all ruined by some poor calls?
the b ball circle is very very small. some coaches n teachers r also referee. there is nth wrong but i once saw a coach shaking hand with a ref b4 the game start. coincidently all the “ambiguous” calls later all favour his team. can someone not think that it is too coincident?
soem coaches are really fresh, so can they start by some zonal matches? where the winner is more obvious, and the game is more str forward to call? rather than the national sch level where level of bball is very close n upset is not uncommon.
thanks for tolerating, but it is my 2-cents worth.
Well, the refs are definitely not up to standards these days. They seem to be refereeing just to earn money and most of the times all the wrong calls are made. I think its about time that BAS makes sure that the refs are all well-trained.
However with that being said, there bound to be some controversial calls and I personally feel that a 3rd ref should be introduced in all matches so that that the 3rd ref can decide which call was correct whenever a situation like what spectator had said.
I think its possible for the parents to get technical foul since they are spectators.Cause i once yelled at the ref for slight late foul called and my friend advice me not to do that as i might get a technical foul from ref.
Errrrr Referee also ask the middle age man “YOU BETTER BEHAVE YOURSELF FIRST” not once but twice..?????? Isn’t the referee “NAIVE” ???? by replying to spectators comment?? The Umpire SHOULD BE MORE PROFESSIONAL in handling such incident by ignoring spectators comment????furthermore the official table just sit there and watch. They are so called the more esperience umpire. Haizzzzzz thats the standard of referee locally.
Today the game between Jurong and SCGS one referee called for TRAVELLING and another called for BLOCKING. But the whistle was blown for travelling first then followed by the other referee blowing for blocking. At the end free throw was given.. what puzzle me who should have the call??????? A junior ref or a senior ref?????
hmmm…any idea if a parent can be called for a technical foul for the team? i know for coaches, it’s possible…but parents??
Indeed the poor umpiring has been in existence and no one bothers to look into the matter, be it the Referees’ Commitee of BAS. With such an environment, it’s difficult to nurture and develop the basketball playing tactics and strategies in Singapore.
Worst still while the game ( Anderson ‘C’ Boy vs Serangoon ‘C’ Boy ) at the BAS Centre yesterday was in progress, one of the Recorders at the Table continued talking to a Coach and not paying attention to the game. A 2-point for the Winner Anderson was missed out and the referees were not aware. As a spectator, it’s extremely disappointed that why should the Schools’ paid such irresponsible staff. Hope the North Zone ‘C’ Division Organising Committee would address this matter and not tolerate such repetition.