Friday, September 3, 2010

A Pre-Monday Poll Query

First, my apologies for the slow week of posting. I'm working on a new project while maintaining several older ones that are usually behind my ever optimistic scheduling without the added pressure of another competing project. Anyway, this is a first.
I'm looking to you lot to supply answers for the upcoming Monday Poll. It's going to be a mostly just for fun poll so instead of you telling me afterwards what I should have done you get an opportunity to make this a better poll by offering up your insights in advance. Then if I don't use your answer you can tell me afterwards how much better the poll would have been if only I'd had the good sense to include your answer--which was obvious, brilliant, clever & amusing. The trifecta plus one!
The upcoming poll question will be: Why do referees huddle? It happens all the time. In PSP divisional and NPPL play it's usually ex post facto (after a penalty has been assessed) but on the pro field it also happens at times before a call is made but after a flag is thrown. I've often wished Derder or Social or somebody filming would jump in the ref's huddle like they do the players huddles but until we have conclusive video evidence of what's going on I want your answers. You've got the weekend to supply an answer or two--or even three--as the poll will go up Monday, with or without you.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Try to continue "What is Tournament Paintball?" please, since you promised conclusions tomorrow! Tomorrow is such an smart word.

Reiner Schafer said...

Safety in number. Nobody wants to be solely responsible for making a bad call. Once unanimous, it automatically becomes the right call (or good call).

DanC. said...

"did any one see what happened?"
"no?"
"well someone threw a flag so something must have".
"ok then we'll just call it a playing on minor and go from there".

in all seriousness, it probably so every one is on the same page. The sport isn't to the point where refs will regularly throw flags at coaches complaining about calls, so no one wants to be wrong. So if a flag is thrown, whoever threw it wants to know if any one else saw something different. Id really like to see a little more ref accountability. IE see if we cant get the head ref to announce the call over the PA so everyone knows whats going on, a la every other sport in the world. Surely a league that promotes audience participation could tolerate them yelling at refs who make bad calls.

Tom222 said...

"Safety in number. Nobody wants to be solely responsible for making a bad call. Once unanimous, it automatically becomes the right call (or good call)"

EXACTLY

Anonymous said...

To get warm :D

Don Saavedra said...

Here's my entirely unrealistic optimist answer: while two or more judges discuss what they saw so they can make the right call, the other refs observe the conversation because it's a teachable moment.

Anonymous said...

Reffing is pretty boring. When couple refs argue what actually happened, you huddle because the only fun you can have while reffing is following the drama.

raehl said...

The same reason referees in the NFL huddle?

Each referee can only see a limited portion of the complete game. There are going to be times when the referees need to figure out what they did not see that the other referees may have. The problem is particularly acute in paintball because the players are spread over such a large area, and players 50 yards apart can be having an effect on each other.

That's not to say that's the reason they huddle every time, or even most of the time, but it wouldn't be reasonable to never expect the referees to talk something out.

Don Saavedra said...

Do they also sometimes play the Hokey Pokey?

Baca Loco said...

Don,
Why do you think your answer is unrealistically optimistic?

Chris,
It seems reasonable on its face--and I'm not against the idea in the least--but unlike football where each penalty is announced and flags are picked up on ocassion as a result of a conference I have yet to see any indication that anything like that is occurring and of course anytime it happens after a penalty is assessed I have trouble assigning cause & effect. At least of the sort you're hypothesizing.

raehl said...

You were asking for poll options, not answers.

I don't have enough data/experience to say whether huddles are usually an effective effort at making the best call or not, but it's certainly an option.