I'll say this:
I'll complain about officiating when it sucks. I typically don't cast everything on officiating, however, but I do believe the influence officials can have over a game is drastic, underrecognized, and underappreciated. Too often, this becomes a black and white issue for a lot of people who can't see any shades of gray. That said, I really tire from the "lol it's never the refs" crowd. The officiating is a variable in the game as large and as important as many of the other things we focus on and harp on. Of course every game has other variables that can account for the ultimate outcome. But people too often view this so simplistically as to assume that because there are variables within control of the players, that it negates any possibility of officiating variability having any appreciable effect on outcome. I also think engaging in avoidance of one's flaws by looking toward the officiating is often lacking an insight that will allow someone to improve. But that's not a hard and fast rule, and that is not entirely true in every circumstance of officiating complaint as we frequently like to believe.
But I'm here for this. I get nauseated by the assumption that one must be a "good soldier" and spew off meaningless catch-phrases pretending that officiating isn't a legitimate variable in the game, and that to do this is the only way to "respect the game" or to be taken seriously. After all, you don't want to look like the ignorant 5th grade kid who can't see his own hand in his own misfortunes. So we bury our head in the sand -- willfully -- as some kind purity sacrifice to appease some "look the part" gods, to give off the appearance of our own humility, meekness, ability at self-castration, and quite self-righteousness to raise up a couple notches on the high brow scale and revel in our own perceived height of self-awareness.
No thanks. Speak this. Let the hate flow through you.
