Cheer for your team but give respect to all, including officials!

Commentary by John Herndon, 110forChrist

You saw that call that determined who would be playing in the women’s college basketball championship game. Or at least that is what some of the talking heads were saying Friday night when Iowa defeated UConn in a national semifinal game.

Was it a foul? Should it have been a no-call?  Chances are your team allegiance would determine your answer.

To refresh your memory, or in case you really didn’t see the sequence of events that had the basketball world buzzing over last weekend, here’s what happened. Iowa led 71-69 but UConn had the ball and, after a timeout, wanted to set up a shot for All-American Paige Bueckers in the final seconds. However, with 3.9 seconds to play, UConn’s Aaliyah Edwards was called for a moving screen as she ran into Iowa’s Gabby Marshall. Iowa was able to kill the final seconds to preserve the win.

And, of course, the final buzzer just started the howls of protest, usually in the form of, “You can’t make that call with the game on the line!”

Why not? Do the rules change when the game clock gets under 30 seconds? Are the rules different in the first 3.9 seconds than the final 3.9 seconds?

If we say we don’t want the game in the officials’ hands, but then don’t want them to enforce the rules because time is running out, then we are actually wanting the game in the officials’ hands.  It’s one of those bizarre scenarios I have wondered about for years.

For the record, I thought the call was the right call. In real time, I thought it was. Then when I saw the replay in slow motion, I was even more sure it was the right call. Edwards appeared to be moving into Marshall and then gave a push with her forearm.

You might have seen it differently, so if you did, we will have to agree to disagree.

But to say that call cost the game is ridiculous.  Across the stat sheet things were pretty equal except for free throws – Iowa hit 10-of-14, UConn 3-4 – and rebounding, where Iowa beat UConn 37-29. Keeping Iowa away from just one of its 11 offensive rebounds could have made the difference.

That’s why I am writing this column. It is easy to blame officials – and let’s be clear, they all make mistakes because they are human beings. But is our behavior becoming a follower of Jesus?

And ultimately, how we act around others – whether that is the bank teller, school teacher, server at Cracker Barrel or athletic officials and opponents – reflects on our relationship with Jesus.

Yes, it’s fine to support a team and support them loudly. When we do that, it’s inevitable there are going to be times we disagree with an official’s call. And, because they are human beings just like us, there are going to be times the officials miss one. That doesn’t mean the game was rigged. It means they are human.

There have been many times in my 39 years of writing sports where I have thought I witnessed a bad call, some of which I wanted to protest with my best Charles Barkley imitation and yell, “Turrible!” Yet when talking with people who saw things from a different perspective or a different angle, I would realize things might not be as obvious as I thought.

And there have been many times I had seen things written in other publications and I saw things much differently. Who was right?  It really didn’t matter.  The officials made the call, the game went on and chances are there were other calls or plays on which we might disagree. Chances are they even out over time.

In March, I was working the Girls’ Eighth Region Tournament, taking pictures along the baseline. The officials for the regional were from the Fifth Region but I personally knew one of the officials, who, like me, is also a minister. He made a call that the fans of one team protested vociferously. Watching the game through my camera lens, I thought, “He missed one there.”

But when I went through my photos later that night, it just so happened that my camera snapped at just the right moment to catch the call in question – it involved who touched a ball for a crucial possession.  The camera caught who touched the ball perfectly and he was RIGHT!

In talking with officials, coaches and school administrators, I find a common theme is that of the shortage of officials. And the more games I attend, the more I understand why. Who would want to put up with people constantly questioning your integrity? Who would want to subject themselves to the physical abuse that makes the news much too often.

In my time as a sports writer/editor, there are some very disputable calls at crucial times that stand out in my mind, but when I reviewed game stats, my conclusion was usually the same as Bueckers, the UConn star who was quoted after the loss to Iowa, “Everybody can make a big deal of that one single play, but not one single play wins a basketball game or loses a basketball game. I feel like there were a lot of mistakes that I made that could’ve prevented that play from even being that big.”

I’ve seen officials go to great lengths to ensure impartiality. I once saw a high school umpire hesitate to call ball four on a close 3-2 pitch with two outs in the bottom of the seventh. That pitch ended a bid for a perfect game. It was the right call on what could have been the final pitch but you just knew it pained him to make that call.

Unfortunately, there are some officials that try to make the game about themselves. Rarely do they last. And yes, officials miss calls just like players miss shots, miss tackles or drop fly balls. They truly are human.

But most of all, those who put on the striped shirts do so because of a love of the game and a desire to help kids. We don’t have to always agree, but they deserve our respect.

So support your team. Support that team loudly and with your heart. And remember that those men and women wearing the striped shirts are trying their best to make the players’ experience positive.