Actually, it is true, there are 3 I am thinking of. I will not give names because one was recently not renewed on his teaching contract because of inappropriate contact with 3 female students, the 2 brothers that I am thinking of still officiate in the area and everyone in the area takes their officiating with a grain of salt. I am from a small town and the school I coached at was a aa highschool. The officiating was suspect to the point that our AD would only get officials from Pittsburgh at our school for home games. I also coached in Colorado at a 5-A school and the officiating was fine.
I played Division 2 in college and was an All American and am still in the top 10, maybe 5, I haven't checked lately, in scoring at my university, I was also an All American in highschool in swimming in 9th grade as well, along with my all state b-ball, and district champ in girls doubles in tennis, but I digress. I believe that is higher than juco. I have no motives, as you suggest and am more than aware that there are good officials. Heaven knows after dealing with parents, that I would not want to be an official. I did choose to be a stay at home mom 4 years ago when I began my family.
Now, you need to be honest and admit that there are bonehead officials more at the local level, I would venture. This was a bonehead call and any person could make a common sense ruling that the boy could play. Next time, don't attack me on something that you go on later in your post to admit that is true. There are bad officials out there with authority complexes.
Congrats on your AA status. I was nowhere near talented enough to be AA at basketball, and probably not at the 6 or so other sports I played at one time or another. But you didn't indicate your record as a coach, and your comments did not limit themselves to 3 officials. Hell, I worked with 3 bad officials in the past WEEK, so I'm well aware of quality issues. If you reread your comments, you seem to lump ALL (or, a lot of) officials in as a group. And as stated, I knew many officials that exceeded your athletic acheivements by a LOT. I'm sorry I didn't, and even had I not been a state quarterfinalist in debate or had all-state band taking up much of my time, DI offers in football were about the best I could have done. At the very least, I far exceeded your assertion of what talent officials had, and you ignored my statement that athletic talent has little to do with good officiating.
Virtually all successful coaches I've worked with would never group or label officials as you did. In terms of calls, I've never trusted coaches and players to know what a "bonehead" call is, because, especially in basketball, the fact is that few know the rules very well. I will conceed that football coaches are better about that. Most of the things that I got screamed at on the court by coaches didn't make any sense, or they were clearly indicating a bias. That's OK; I understood what I was signing up to do. But coaches holding themselves out as an authority on what officials are doing right or wrong is borderline idiotic. Basically, the bottom line is: how many times have you worn a striped shirt and whistle on a court for a real game with yelling fans and coaches?
As far as this incident, contrary to what most think on here, what the officials did was reasonable. It was the school district that had the responsibility to notify the state association and ask for a waiver. What you don't seem to understand is that if the officials don't follow the rules, they could easily be sued if a player is injured. Can you specify what rules should be followed and what ones can be ignored? Are you willing to indemnify any official from a suit based upon your specifications in that regard? Finally, you complain about the supposed athletic prowess of officials you have had experience with, yet the key to good officiating is getting the calls right. I'll conceed being in shape is helpful, and I do my absolute best in that regard. However, my point is that you are either complaining about good officials making good calls, but not having been good athletes, which is totally stupid, OR you are asserting that their lack of athletic acheivement hinders their officiating. I believe the later to be wrong, but not stupid, and the key is that if they are wrong, they are not enforcing the rules correctly. In this situation, the officials enforced the rules correctly and you are complaining about it.
So which way do you want it?
I stand by my comments that based upon yours, that you have an apparant chip on your shoulder about something, as I've identified the contridiction (or at least, the inconsistentcy in your point. I just wish you would be honest about it.