It seems that every weekend that passes provides yet another opportunity for us to accumulate more PEARLS OF WISDOM as officials. Mondays are always a great day because that's when we get the emails with all the events that happened over the weekend.
Here are some of the PEARLS from this weekend:
New code violation created at the state UIL tennis tournament.
Seems that a new code violation has been created at the state tournament this year--a code for putting your racket on the top of your head. The explanation we heard was that it is a code for unsportsmanlike conduct because when a player does this it means that he/she is ridiculing their opponent for playing over their head. I can surely understand unsportsmanlike conduct, but this one is a little difficult to comprehend. Last time I saw a young man doing this I asked what he was doing and he said, "I'm playing like a dunce," so i guess the beauty of a code is truly found in the eye of the official...
Ty McDonald in action at the University of North Texas team tournament.
This was a great weekend as my son, Ty, had his first real encounter with a wild college player. Seems that the girl yelled out the F-word so he coded her. Then a few games later as he was standing at the net and the girl had just lost her serve to go down 0-5 after losing the first set, she said s__t, and Ty told her to "watch out" since she didn't yell it out and he was the only one who heard it. She then looked him squarely in the eye and said, "Shut Up!"
He then had the inglorious privilege of saying: code violation, unsportsmanlike conduct, game penalty--game, set, and match. The girl then began to cry and her coach congratulated Ty and then suspended his player...
A lesson well learned.
Gary Tolbert showing the proper way to have a coach exit the court after a changeover.
Perhaps we should do a teaching video showing officials the proper hand signal for directing a coach to leave the court after calling "time" on a changeover. Seems that one official at the state tournament simply told the coach, "Get the hell off the court."
Perhaps a little more training would be in order...
14 comments:
You need to correct the blog. The rcaquet on the head did not start at the State Tournament, it was called at the Regional Tournament by the official you know well. It means that their opponent is playing Treed. We annunced this at the coaches meeting and sure enough in the first match a player did it twice, but the official didn,t see it only the Coach of her opponent. That and the calling of "Time" and the Coach gets right in the face of the official and says "How much time do I have?" and the Official says " You need to get off of the court"(with out the profanity). The Coach proceeds to say "I still have 30 seconds". Then I get the call to come to the court. I tried to explain to Coach that when the official says "Time", the coach is to leave, but he still wanted to argue with me.
Sorry but when the official calls time then the coach and the player have 30 seconds before the player has to be ready to play and the coach leave the court.
I will stand by the validity of the coach's statement when he told me that the official told him to "get the hell off the court."
So now that a high school official somewhere decides that a player putting a racket on their head is a code violation then it is accepted policy at the state high school tennis tournament? Sounds like Abilene rules.
I can't believe any official would give a player a code for putting the racket on their head. Just tell them not to do it again and THEN code them if they do. We are not the morals police nor should we have to keep up with every trend in the teenage ranks.
So what exactly is Treed? And how does it apply in this case?
"Treed" means that they are playing really good and probably over their heads. The rest I'm not sure about.
Maybe you should just tell the kids what Treed means and then they will stop doing it....
treed adj : forced to turn and face attackers; ... Treeing.] 1. To drive to a tree; to cause to ascend a tree; as, a dog trees a squirrel. --J. Burroughs.
It's really scary when the people making the rules don't know the rules. Maybe this is one of the problems we are facing and why too many officials aren't enforcing the rules properly.
A little common sense goes a long way to preventing problems.
My wife and I were sitting in the stands by the court when the official said exactly what is printed in the blog post. What a disgrace.
Why is it that the UIL chooses to use some of the weakest officials at the state tournament? Shouldn't this be the tournament where they find the best of the best? I know it might come down to money but just check out how much they pay the officials at the state finals in football.
The reason why the UIL uses weak officials for the State championships is because their payscale still dates back to the 80's, i.e., $100 per day and no mileage nor hotel arrangements. The more experienced officials aren't stupid enough to work an event where they lose money, unless if course they receive under-the-table compensation from certain coaches that have lots of discretionary funds available.
I did do some checking about the racket on the head code thing...
We managed to find one guy here in Dallas who did it in a tournament. When the official asked him what he was doing he said, "I'm playing like a dick-head and that's what that means."
Guess we have a new dimension to the new code...
Lol! "playing like tree" or "Tree'd" has been around since the days of wood racquets...so much for the "experience" officials.
This sounds CRAZY - but, BACK IN THE DAY---- we use to do this stuff for free! Some officials love to "give back" to tennis. It is not always about the money!
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