We are the midst of the ITA and UIL season and things are really heating up everywhere! Players and coaches are putting the officials to the test--and the vast majority of the officials are doing great--but then there is that small percentage that is failing, and failing badly...
When you have a tennis officials blog people all over everywhere call and email you with all kinds of stories about officials. Some are hilarious, some are sad, and some make me embarrassed for our profession. Here is one of them that I received from a coach today...
SCENARIO
In a tournament finals match between two girls doubles teams, team A was serving in the latter stages of the third set. When team A served a fault, then the Mother of one of the players on team B shouted out between the first and second serve. No action was taken by the official standing by the court...
Team A then served the next serve and served a fault. Then as she was serving her second serve, the same Mother clapped loudly during the service motion. Again, no action by the official...
Finally, Team A was serving the third time and after serving a fault, she was serving her second serve and the same Mother shouted out for her team to "Go, go, go." Again, no action by the official...
The coach of Team A called me and asked what recourse he had. I said, "Basically none except that you probably shouldn't hire that official again." My explanation didn't really satisfy the coach.
And this is one of the reasons we get a bad name--and in this case, rightfully so.
3 comments:
first time ok, but second time official should have after the point asked the crowd for silence between serves and during the point.
UIL have anything in their rules regarding crowd control or parents. Obviously this parent is an idiot and should be banned but that is beside the point.
Where was the referee for the competition?
The UIL reverts to USTA when it comes to crowd control. For an official, its usually best in the UIL to confer with the coach if one of their parents is misbehaving and that usually takes care of it. There could be suspension steps if a school doesn't keep its parents in line.
Post a Comment