Editor’s Note: Troy Lyle’s recent coverage of the recent ROCK bout against ROSI in Evansville, Indiana, sparked a number of comments on the NoC webpage. Most dealt with Lyle’s treatment of the refs. Below is a solicited response from a league ref, accompanied by Lyle’s take on his coverage.
By Morgan Robertson
Troy,
From your story (ROCK not so rosy against ROSI,” May 19) it appears that you don’t really have an idea of a) how hard reffing is, b) how few good refs there are and how thinly we are spread, and c) how well-integrated refs are into league membership. We’re not the villains out there, we’re part of a large group of volunteers making things derby happen together: skaters, non-skating officials (NSOs), refs, etc. One team. When one of us lets the others down, as seemed to happen at the ROCK/ROSI bout, we all feel bad.
To illustrate my point: I used to ref in Baltimore. At a nearby league during one bout, an announcer got big kicks out of maligning the refs’ calls during the bout. At the end, he loudly hurled abuse that criticized the refs for bad calls that he thought had decided the game. After that game, fans mauled one of the refs in the parking lot, broke his nose, and walked away laughing. After the bout, drunken fans began to loudly plan to go “zebra hunting” and assault a ref in the parking lot — because it’s all part of the game, right? “Those damn zebras, we’ll show them.” The refs stayed together and there was no incident.
But the fans had beaten up someone and were planning to ambush someone who was considered a league-mate and friend. From the beginning of modern derby, the ref squads have always been made up of the friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, brothers, sisters and sons of the skaters. Who else would do it? There are slow moves towards making refs independent of leagues – such as WFTDA national certification – but the reality is that we are as much a part of the derby family as the skaters are.
To portray us as the enemies in the drama of the bout no doubt has narrative satisfactions, but it also has real life consequences. It drives a wedge between the refs and the leagues that they work for/with, and it makes it hard to entice anyone to join the ref squad. And derby simply cannot be played — even a pickup game — without refs. It’s an odd sport that way.
So by all means, report on what happens when the refs screw up, but try to resist launching simple abuse at the refs. Instead, investigate! What are the reasons behind the complaints? Surely there’s a story there — find it! It turns out there was a lot going on in Evansville that had nothing to do with our desire to “stuff penalties into a jam”.
Would you write this (“refs” replaced with “ROCK players” in your original text) about ROCK skaters?
· “Then ROCK players went to shit. For some reason they felt compelled to ruin a perfectly good derby bout with a string of senseless plays.”
· “One could tell there was too much pride at stake to let ROCK’s incompetence get the best of ROSI’s seasoned derby squad.”
· “The ROCK players were up to their nonsense once again in the next to last jam of the day.”
You might, but it wouldn’t be considered fair. Yet in fact, you did write that about ROCK members, volunteers and the volunteers of several other leagues.
A ref asking for respect is likely wasting her or his time — unpopularity comes with the job. And what makes derby amazing is that it’s “for the skaters, by the skaters” – it’s not about refs. But since you’ve taken the time to get to know derby through ROCK, it’d be nice if you tried to understand the time and effort and dedication put in by refs. We train weekly, memorize a 36-page rules book, and simultaneously call penalties and count points while dodging fallen skaters and keeping up with the sprinting jammers. We skate 7 miles each bout, and never sit down. There may be harder officiating jobs, but I don’t know of any. It’s incredibly rewarding, however, and I encourage any smart, athletic men and women out there to put on stripes and join us.
None of this is meant to imply that the refs at the ROSI/ROCK bout were doing a great job. They clearly had some problems and there is a crying scarcity of well-trained refs out there. Except for WFTDA-level bouts, most refs are currently learning on-the-job. This is a real problem — but the solution probably does not involve vilifying referees. You should really try volunteering as an NSO for one bout. From the infield you get a much better sense of how refs make the bout work. A blown call here or there seems a lot less significant (not that it should happen) when you realize how much the refs have to do just to keep the wheels moving.
Morgan Robertson is a Certified Referee, Level II, in the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association
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