I once read where a Major League Baseball umpire had to be perfect his first day on the job and improve from there. Sadly, there is more truth than fiction in that statement even when dealing with high school officials.

I’ll usually give an official, or an officiating crew, the benefit of the doubt. Their jobs are thankless as they try to maintain some order in the gyms and on the playing fields.

Sometimes I just can’t keep silent.

Niceville lost to Jacksonville Bartram Trail 35-12 Friday night in one of the worst officiated games I’ve seen in my seven years covering prep sports in this area.

Even before the game, the officials set the tone for things to come. As the teams came onto the field for the kickoff, the Bears stomped on the Niceville logo at midfield and taunted the Eagles. It was a clear case of unsportsmanlike conduct, but no flags were thrown by the officials.

As the game unfolded, the Eagles were flagged for eight major penalties, i.e. a personal foul, unsportsmanlike conduct or holding, and 11 penalties total. The Bears were hit with four penalities, only one of which was a major foul.

On two personal foul facemask penalties that went against the Eagles, I was standing in plain few of the play looking straight across at the tackle. There’s no doubt in my mind that both were bad calls.

Bartram Trail probably wins the game even without the favorable calls. But it would have been interesting to see if things might have turned out any differently a less one-sided effort from the officials.

Niceville and their fans deserved as much.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 24th, 2007 at 11:46 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.