Big Ten referees

[ChiTownLion]

Bumped into a Big Ten referee tonight.

They make $400 per soccer match, $2,000 per football game.

I brought up the obvious bullshit conflicts of interest in football, which he has never officiated, and it didn't register in his mind at all.

I told him about the insane history of Dick Honig, David Witvoet, Dave Parry, Bill LeMonnier, etc, at the University of Michigan and he didnt recognize any of those names. I asked him if he knew how instant replay came to be and he had no clue.

They get paid by the Big Ten Conference in Rosemont, IL. They get a very healthy and flexible stipend and travel allowance. For the most part, they are new and involved for the love of the game.

I kept pressing the question about outside influences and opportunities for bias. This guy has been officiating B1G games for almost 2 years and I actually believe he's not aware of any external influences. He said MSU is very aggressive in pissing off the refs.

Having spoken with this guy, I think Big Ten refs (TODAY) are not influenced (anymore).

I still strongly believe Michigan had the refs in their pocket for football through the early 2000s until those fools all eventually retired. I actually wrote David Witvoet a handwritten letter in 2002ish that said, "Thanks for all your support in the Penn State vs Michigan series. Enclosed below is a token of my appreciation. Signed, Michigan Man."

I taped a $1 bill to the card in the envelope. The idea was to make it abundantly clear that EVERYONE KNOWS HE'S INFLUENCING THE OUTCOME OF GAMES FOR MICHIGAN.

 

[76-1]

Bumped into a Big Ten referee tonight.

They make $400 per soccer match, $2,000 per football game.

I brought up the obvious bullshit conflicts of interest in football, which he has never officiated, and it didn't register in his mind at all.

I told him the history of Dick Honig, David Witvoet, Bill LeMonnier, etc, and he didnt recognize any of those names.

They get paid by the Big Ten Conference in Rosemont, IL. They get a very healthy stipend and travel allowance. For the most part, they are new and involved for the love of the game.

I kept pressing the question about outside influences. This guy has been officiating B1G games for almost 2 years and I actually believe he's not aware of any external influences. He said MSU is very aggressive in pissing off the refs.

M$U is also Very aggressive when it comes to buying a couple of them...

 

[BudatPSU]

M$U is also Very aggressive when it comes to buying a couple of them...

Would that be little brother copying big brother?

 

[tboyer]

Has O'Neill retired yet? But yes, the quality of officiating has improved tremendously and I no longer sense hostility toward PSU.

PSU's big win against Ohio State in 2016 only happened because the crew called an evenhanded game. PSU's big win at Iowa in 2017 only happened because the crew didn't throw cheap flags to hand the game to Iowa at the end. There's no way PSU would have won either of those games the way the officiating was 15 years ago.

It's just light-years from the 1990s when Dave Parry ran the show and the B1G was an old boys club -- and the old boys saw Penn State and Paterno as dangerous interlopers.

Yes there are going to be some bad calls, and some games where PSU has a bunch of calls go against them. But it's been a long time since I felt like a crew was actively trying to help the other team -- probably Ohio State 2014 was the last one.

 

[Option Bob]

Bumped into a Big Ten referee tonight.

They make $400 per soccer match, $2,000 per football game.

I brought up the obvious bullshit conflicts of interest in football, which he has never officiated, and it didn't register in his mind at all.

I told him about the insane history of Dick Honig, David Witvoet, Dave Parry, Bill LeMonnier, etc, at the University of Michigan and he didnt recognize any of those names. I asked him if he knew how instant replay came to be and he had no clue.

They get paid by the Big Ten Conference in Rosemont, IL. They get a very healthy and flexible stipend and travel allowance. For the most part, they are new and involved for the love of the game.

I kept pressing the question about outside influences and opportunities for bias. This guy has been officiating B1G games for almost 2 years and I actually believe he's not aware of any external influences. He said MSU is very aggressive in pissing off the refs.

Having spoken with this guy, I think Big Ten refs (TODAY) are not influenced (anymore).

I still strongly believe Michigan had the refs in their pocket for football through the early 2000s until those fools all eventually retired. I actually wrote David Witvoet a handwritten letter in 2002ish that said, "Thanks for all your support in the Penn State vs Michigan series. Enclosed below is a token of my appreciation. Signed, Michigan Man."

I taped a $1 bill to the card in the envelope. The idea was to make it abundantly clear that EVERYONE KNOWS HE'S INFLUENCING THE OUTCOME OF GAMES FOR MICHIGAN.

WTG, ChiTown! I am riding shotgun with you on this idea, despite the oft-heard "tin foil hat" comments. IMO, Matt McGloin's comments after the Nebraska game validate our views that certain refs simply despised PSU and/or Joe Paterno.

I also refer skeptics to that article by/about a retired Big Ten ref who admits that Bo & Woody had veto power over refs in their darling little game. Such veto power implies that certain officials were either incompetent or "wrongly biased"; either way, approval by the league shows deferment to the Darling Two over the other 8/9/12.

Currently, only John O'Neil seems to maintain a level of resentment toward PSU, though he is not so egregious as he was in 2014. A part of me is a tad suspicious of Canon, whose crew did the Michigan game last year when the blocked FG return was fortuitously called back.

I will feel better when I know for sure that neither Honig nor Witvoet "is in the booth" for a PSU game.

Now you need to get a meeting with the schedule maker ... enough of these back-to-back OSU & Michigan games so often.

 

[SUPERTODD]

Bumped into a Big Ten referee tonight.

They make $400 per soccer match, $2,000 per football game.

I brought up the obvious bullshit conflicts of interest in football, which he has never officiated, and it didn't register in his mind at all.

I told him about the insane history of Dick Honig, David Witvoet, Dave Parry, Bill LeMonnier, etc, at the University of Michigan and he didnt recognize any of those names. I asked him if he knew how instant replay came to be and he had no clue.

They get paid by the Big Ten Conference in Rosemont, IL. They get a very healthy and flexible stipend and travel allowance. For the most part, they are new and involved for the love of the game.

I kept pressing the question about outside influences and opportunities for bias. This guy has been officiating B1G games for almost 2 years and I actually believe he's not aware of any external influences. He said MSU is very aggressive in pissing off the refs.

Having spoken with this guy, I think Big Ten refs (TODAY) are not influenced (anymore).

I still strongly believe Michigan had the refs in their pocket for football through the early 2000s until those fools all eventually retired. I actually wrote David Witvoet a handwritten letter in 2002ish that said, "Thanks for all your support in the Penn State vs Michigan series. Enclosed below is a token of my appreciation. Signed, Michigan Man."

I taped a $1 bill to the card in the envelope. The idea was to make it abundantly clear that EVERYONE KNOWS HE'S INFLUENCING THE OUTCOME OF GAMES FOR MICHIGAN.

I coach soccer. Nearly every referee with whom I have ever spoken claims “they don’t know who is playing and they don’t care.” To a certain degree they are all lying. It is impossible to enter a game at the HS level and not know who is the favorite. You would have to live under a rock not to know. So I do believe the majority of referees have only a small bias. The fact they refuse to acknowledge it is disheartening to me. The only way to overcome a bias is to acknowledge its presence.

I have coached thousands of game and can only think of a handful where I was convinced the referee was making an attempt to influence the game. They all occurred when an urban school was playing a suburban school.

 

[Fox Chapel Lion II]

I still think they are all a bunch of shizholians.

 

[Nittany Ziggy]

I still think they are all a bunch of shizholians.

B1G Shizolians!

 

[bison13]

I can't think of any college games that I played in where I thought the refs were for/against us. The previous 20 years of watching any team against UM or OSU I absolutely saw it and even some of the small college refs I know agree with regard to timing of bad calls. In my own coaching career I had one example of a bad officials. Coaching hs boys basketball and for the second time in two weeks we had a guy screw us, except in the second one an officials supervisor seated behind me heard his comments to me after a poor call. He asked to see me after the game and wanted game film of the previous one too. Ref was removed from any of my schools games and none in my conference either. If only that could be how the B1G worked

 

[JoeDidntKnow]

More like referines

 

[Fox Chapel Lion II]

More like referines

 

[pittfan2020]

Im a Penn state grad and I referee soccer, and a soon to be in law is a big ten football ref. College soccer refs get more than that. The center ref typically gets 500+ for the game, the sidelines get 350-400, also per diem, the big ten fee, and mileage and all expenses paid. I would imagine football works the same way. And the big ten ref close to the family has a daughter that’s a Penn state student. I don’t believe in a big bias towards certain teams. They get assessed and have higher ups to answer too. If you get assessed poorly you lose your spot

 

[pittfan2020]

I’ve also coached soccer for almost 10 years at the high school level. And I can tell you that as a referee, I’ve never had a bias towards anybody. But when a coach is down my throat from the start of the game about calls, he’s not gonna be getting them

 

[Fox Chapel Lion II]

Im a Penn state grad and I referee soccer, and a soon to be in law is a big ten football ref. College soccer refs get more than that. The center ref typically gets 500+ for the game, the sidelines get 350-400, also per diem, the big ten fee, and mileage and all expenses paid. I would imagine football works the same way. And the big ten ref close to the family has a daughter that’s a Penn state student. I don’t believe in a big bias towards certain teams. They get assessed and have higher ups to answer too. If you get assessed poorly you lose your spot

You get a red check mark from Bill Carollo.

 

[Victor E. Bell]

But when a coach is down my throat from the start of the game about calls, he’s not gonna be getting them

That's refreshing to read because many officials would rather not hear the guy the rest of the game and do the exact opposite. I understand it's human nature but you have to be better than that and remember you always have the authority to run the guy.

I coached some HS baseball as an asst and there was no tolerance for bench jockeying. You could ask for help or a clarification and that was it. I never saw anybody get run but I saw it back in my playing days when things were more wide open. Coaches were off the hook and needed to be reeled in some. PIAA umps in recent years were cool, I was told between innings "Hey, tell your boy he's close to a balk not coming set." I'd do it, make sure the ump saw me tell him. No problem. Thank the guy end of game win or lose. Saw some very good umps in HS who have been doing it a long time. Even young guys, very professional appearance, shined up. Some have their biases for sure but they do their best for the most part. I had umps tell me after games how they love doing our games because we had a good catcher and they liked to rap a bit with him during the game and they didn't have to worry about getting killed.

Many years of PSU football the officials were a farce. The "wrong feed" replay jive was the most egregious recently. That's the dog ate my homework defense but they have the juice and we don't so too bad. I can't get that worked up about it anymore but it's still fun to read guys rip them here.

 

[Sproul]

Im a Penn state grad and I referee soccer, and a soon to be in law is a big ten football ref. College soccer refs get more than that. The center ref typically gets 500+ for the game, the sidelines get 350-400, also per diem, the big ten fee, and mileage and all expenses paid. I would imagine football works the same way. And the big ten ref close to the family has a daughter that’s a Penn state student. I don’t believe in a big bias towards certain teams. They get assessed and have higher ups to answer too. If you get assessed poorly you lose your spot

You’re spot on except “all expenses paid.” Mileage is $1.03 one way (federal rate) and per diem is a 3 tiered system based upon how far you are traveling to the match. The per diem is yours to spend as you like, but you get nothing above that. It’s not like we can go out and have caviar and expense it.

 

[KnightWhoSaysNit]

I’ve also coached soccer for almost 10 years at the high school level. And I can tell you that as a referee, I’ve never had a bias towards anybody. But when a coach is down my throat from the start of the game about calls, he’s not gonna be getting them

Don't you have to impose a bias to ensure "he's not gonna be getting them?"

 

[Victor E. Bell]

Don't you have to impose a bias to ensure "he's not gonna be getting them?"

No, the bias is the guy isn't entitled to be an a-hole and he's not going to beg calls by going out of control. Big Ten coaches have made a living on this, Gene Keady leaps immediately to mind and it's cost us when we had guys like Eddie and Dunn who wouldn't say shiz if they had a mouthful. Who got the calls? Not us.

 

[tboyer]

But when a coach is down my throat from the start of the game about calls, he’s not gonna be getting them

You wouldn't have liked doing Michigan games. Going back to the days of Bo, the job of a Michigan coach was to whine and cry at the officials for basically 4 quarters. Watch tape of Lloyd Carr -- he coached players during the week, but on Saturdays 90% of his energy went into coaching the refs. And it paid off for them game after game.

Harbaugh, part of that tradition, still spends a lot of his sideline time whining at the refs, but it hasn't really worked for him. The B1G crews just don't feel like they work for Harbaugh the way the old boys felt they worked for Carr and Bo.