SEC Referees’ Incompetence Is Unacceptable
Okay, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, time for us to have a talk. Today, I’m not writing as a Tennessee Volunteers writer. Today, I’m writing as an SEC fan.
Through the years, I’ve learned to let complaints about officiating go in one ear and out the other. Yes, it’s frustrating to watch a group of officials poorly call a game. Yes, it’s infuriating when a couple of questionable calls puts a player on the bench. But complaining about the refs is second nature to any sports fan, and at the end of the day, the officials’ role in a game is — or should be — relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
But basketball officiating in the SEC this year has been on a whole different level of horrific. This year, SEC officials were determining the outcomes of games with poor calls on pivotal plays. When officiating changes a team’s W-L record, that doesn’t matter to the committee on Selection Sunday. They don’t care why a team lost; they only know that they did. Heading into March Madness, the conference should have been concerned about that.
However, the SEC has been consistently tone-deaf to the growing concern regarding the state of its core of referees and their competence in game situations . But Friday night in St. Louis, the SEC proved that there really is a level of appalling beyond unacceptable and you were there to see it, Commissioner.
The inexcusable ineptitude of SEC officiating resulted in a frightening injury to Mississippi State player Nick Weatherspoon after a preventable escalation of disasters that could have easily been spotted.
In the quarterfinals of the SEC basketball tournament, an officiating crew somehow neglected to notice — or care, evidently — that Weatherspoon was down with an apparent hip injury underneath the MSST goal. They didn’t notice when Weatherspoon didn’t get up. They didn’t notice he remained down for a full possession on the other end of the court. They didn’t notice there were only four Mississippi State players on the court when the ball came the other way, and the play bulleted back to where Weatherspoon was still down and unable to get up. Mississippi State coach Ben Howland was yelling at the refs about it as the Vols brought the ball up.
Virtually the whole rest of the sports world noticed, but the officials didn’t notice until Kyle Alexander of Tennessee and Quindarry Weatherspoon of Mississippi State slammed into a defenseless Nick Weatherspoon under the MSST goal.
The refs never stopped play. They never moved to protect Nick Weatherspoon. When Weatherspoon’s situation went from bad to dangerous, they didn’t bother to intervene. As a result, Nick Weatherspoon was taken from Scottrade Arena a few minutes later with not only a possible hip injury, but apparent injuries to the neck and head as well.
After the game, SEC Coordinator of Officials, Mark Whitehead, issued a statement:
The play on which Nick Weatherspoon was injured unfolded in a rapid sequence of events that led to the continuation of play after Nick initially fell under the Mississippi State basket. The officials did not recognize Nick was injured until after the transition that led to completion of the play where, unfortunately, he remained on the floor.
Rapid sequence of events? After Weatherspoon was injured, the Vols took the ball all the way to the other end of the court and the Bulldogs brought the game all the way back to the opposite end of play. Two trips up and down the court aren’t a ‘rapid sequence of events’. Plus, you have to be a moron to ‘not recognize’ a basketball player is injured when he’s lying flat on his back on the floor and clutching his hip as he grimaces in pain. You have to ask yourself how it is possible that when the refs saw Weatherspoon under the MSST basket before the play even crossed back across mid-floor they didn’t immediately think, “Wait a minute . Something’s wrong— ”
What happened to Nick Weatherspoon is inexcusable on every level.
Game play was stopped — finally — after the pileup under the basket for Weatherspoon to be tended to. But after Weatherspoon was removed from the arena and taken to the hospital, game play should have remained stopped. That crew of officials should have been removed immediately from the court and replaced with another set— because their negligence not only impacted the game as it does night after night, but endangered the health and safety of the student athletes.
At this moment, I don’t give a darn about blown calls or phantom fouls. And let’s be honest, Commissioner Sankey: how do you expect a crew that can’t count to five to accurately call fouls or traveling? How do you expect coaches, players, and fans to accept the judgment of a group of men who somehow didn’t notice Mississippi State only had four men playing for not one trip down the court but two? How do you expect anyone to trust the instincts of men who stood by and did nothing when the game returned to the end of the court with an injured player still lying, unmoving, on the floor under the goal?
Let’s be straight up here — it’s kind of hard not to see a a six-foot-two, two-hundred pound man in a maroon uniform flat against a wooden floor. Do I have to mention again that Ben Howland was yelling about his downed player? Basketball officials are paid to enforce the rules of the game. They have to be able to follow and swiftly intervene in the ‘rapid sequence of events’ that is the game of basketball.
On top of that, this was the SEC tournament. That arena was packed full of SEC officials. Officials courtside. Officials at the stats table. Officials running replay. Officials in the sky boxes. I’m pretty sure you were there too, Commissioner Sankey, seeing as you presented Tennessee with their regular season co-championship trophy right before the game. Out of all those SEC officials bustling around the arena with their all-access lanyards around their necks not one single SEC official made a move to protect the safety of a defenseless, injured player.
Not one.
The SEC’s statement regarding the Weatherspoon injury was nothing but an excuse…the kind of condescending response one can expect from an organization whose sense of entitlement lends itself to dismissal of outside concerns or criticism. Instead of leading the SEC to ask tough questions of itself, the league rattled off a whiny excuse like it was annoyed anyone would dare to object to the way it’s run. The abysmal incompetence of SEC officials was exposed Friday night, both on the court and off. The SEC’s refusal to address its own failings ended up putting an athlete into the back of an ambulance.
That’s on referee Pat Adams and his whole officiating crew, who evidently can’t keep up with the ‘rapid sequence of events’ formerly known as college hoops. That’s on Mark Whitehead, who coordinates SEC officials and is a speed whiz when it comes to releasing generic statements but obviously doesn’t do one darn thing to make sure officials are adequately performing all aspects of their jobs. That’s on you.
Your fault, sir, because the conference under your leadership has neglected to address the plethora of issues with SEC officiating throughout the season. The SEC under your leadership has ignored the blown calls, looked past the games where the refs decided the outcome thanks to poor officiating.
The SEC under your leadership is apparently much more concerned with self-defense and issuing explanations for a level of incompetence that as far as I can tell has no defense.
Friday night’s game exposed the SEC’s indifference to the safety of its athletes. We all know these games are on a schedule. The ebb and flow of the game is determined by television breaks that bring more money into SEC coffers. The reason no one stopped the game? No one wanted to interfere with the cha-ching of dollars rolling into the conference office.
We require more from you, Commissioner Sankey, than trophy presentations and self-justification for the conference’s mistakes. It is your absolute responsibility to create and maintain an atmosphere for SEC games in all sports where the officials are not only monitoring the games for fair play but are working to safeguard and protect the athletes playing in it.
At the end of the day, the Volunteers escaped with a win and advanced to the semi-finals. That’s great. But that’s not what fans of the game are thinking about right now. Minds and hearts in Starkville, MS and Knoxville, TN are with Nick Weatherspoon and his family as they wait to see how the SEC’s disregard for player welfare plays out in the hospital. Throughout the rest of the Southeastern Conference, other fans are thinking about their own teams, their own players, and thinking, “That could have been us. That could have been our player. We can’t trust the SEC to look after our athletes.”
If you don’t start paying attention to what’s going on outside of the league offices, Commissioner, more young athletes will end up injured on your watch. And that, sir, is unacceptable. The heart of collegiate athletics isn’t in a bank vault, despite the priorities of executives with expense accounts and carte blanche to every major event.
The heart of collegiate athletics beats in the chest of every player, every coach, every fan. The heart of collegiate athletics is in the fun of the game, the stakes of a championship season, and the cusp of post-season play.
Tonight in St. Louis, the heart of college athletics lay injured on the floor of Scottrade Arena, and was ignored by SEC referees and officials until it was too late to protect him from further injury.
The SEC’s mission statement focuses on the conference’s application of the ‘highest standards of education and competitive sports’. I would include having officials competent enough to know when to stop game play when a guy gets hurt. I would suggest, Commissioner Sankey, that now would be a good time to consider how best to incorporate the welfare of student-athletes into those ‘highest standards’.
Because if the ‘highest standard’ of officiating the SEC has to offer was on display Friday in St. Louis, the SEC has bigger problems than coaches buying recruits’ meals or getting the revenue doled out from the SEC Network.
Commissioner Sankey, you must shift your focus to the glaring deficiencies within the conference, especially when it comes to officiating. Commissioner Sankey, you must demand that what happened to Nick Weatherspoon doesn’t ever happen again.
Time to live up to your marketing. SEC has self-promoted with complacent platitudes for a long time. The SEC…it just means more, right? Well, it’s time, Commissioner Sankey, to make player safety the top priority.
Player safety means a hell of a lot more than the SEC, Mr. Sankey. Nothing, not even the reputation of the conference, means anything compared to that.
