Yelling at the referee

I can't believe I'm writing this but, "Remember the good old days...?" This weekend, my mind was brought back to the phrase when starting the sentence, Remember the good old days when you could yell at a referee (or baseball umpire) and share what you thought - "thought" being defined loosely - and they had to "take it"? Remember the good old days when anyone and everyone at a sporting event could scream their frustration at a referee and then sit back down having vented their frustration? Or two hours later walk out with their friends blaming the referee for the team's loss?

In 2012, you really cannot do that. Maybe the fan in the second section of a 20,000 seat arena or a 50,000 seat baseball/football stadium can yell and scream because the referee/umpire won't hear them. But most places you go, you cannot yell at a sports official anymore... without the risk of being escorted out by a security guard from the arena/diamond, being faced with a fine for "public nuisance" or some other judgement for being of sports fan over-intensity. I've even seen officials respond (ie. talk back) to the fans! I thought that was the #1 no-no you learned at officiating training.

Now please hear me. I am not in any way suggesting that yelling at a referee about a penalty call is morally upright or practically beneficial (Though again, you used to be told to shut up because the referee won't change his mind anyway, but now... they will change their mind, or in the professional leagues at least look at instant reply!). I agree that 95-99% of the time the fans are wrong! They don't see the play through the eyes of the official on the ice/field and they don't understand the intricacies of the rule. A sporting event should not be an excuse to put away all rules of civility just because you are "at the game."

Nonetheless, it seems to me that the pendulum has swung to the other extreme where the warning "the referee's a person too with feelings just like you and me" has morphed inexplicably to: "The referee/umpire is always right. How dare you question his authority. You will now be penalized for challenging that authority."

The NHL, following the lead of the NBA (no surprise given Gary Bettman's previous employer!), now fines coaches and players if they so much at hint that a referee made a poor call. The league apparently is getting to the point of despising NY Rangers coach John Tortorella because of his one sentence press conferences. However, he realizes that when a reporter asks a question, he cannot actually answer what he thinks or else the NHL will fine him, so he has a standard answer of 10 seconds in length for any question.

Likewise, after the Los Angeles Kings eliminated the Phoenix Coyotes with an overtime goal a mere dozen seconds after Phoenix defenceman Michael Roszival was perhaps seriously injured by a knee-to-knee collision with Dustin Brown, the NHL was expected to hand out serious penalties to their coach, captain and goaltender for expressing their frustration and anger so vehemently after the game. Again, in this fan's opinion Roszival put himself offside and the split second between the linesman's call and the knee-to-knee hit was not because of a dirty (or even penalty-worthy) check by Brown but as a matter of a collision between two big hockey men that played to the whistle. But when the emotion of a potential season ending injury is compounded just a few second later with the emotion of being eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs and your season ending, I don't expect players to be able to just give polite cliche answers five minutes later. (Frankly, I wondered if they would even "fake" the traditional end-of-series handshake minutes later, but they went through with it).

This "sports" issue really is a reflection of a society-wide issue: leadership cannot handle criticism. Again, I am not arguing that all criticism is either right or fair. Students in Quebec complaining because their tuition for university is going to be increased 5% so that it is almost $2500 per year! Are you kidding? This is 1/3 of any other post-secondary education in Canada. Citizens complaining because the federal government has decided to cut funding to Air Canada and to slash civil service jobs. Usually Canadians citizens are whining about "government bureaucracy" or "if they would just stop propping up Air Canada"... and yet when they do, you'd think the Conservatives had cut health care or education or senior citizen programming.

A discouraged and dejected leader recently shared, "It just seems that whatever I do, someone's got a complaint about it." I wanted to say, "Yeah... so... suck it up! That's life if you're in leadership." or "Good! You must be doing something right." (Don't worry, I didn't say any of those tender compassionate words.)

In Canadian politics, they at least designate it officially: "the official opposition." However, criticism comes from different sources. In our media-saturated age, a sound clip gets publicized without the whole perspective being communicated. Its important for leadership to remember to get the full story of the criticism, not just the sound bite or the second hand report.

Certainly, there's the issue of respect and honour for leadership, often people you have chosen/elected, but that is a topic for a future blog. There comes a point in which leaders need to grow thick skin and realize that criticism is part of life. If you are leading and everyone is happy (ie. no one has complaints), I would suggest that you are either not doing much (leading) or doing the right things. So...

If the Stanley Cup final has some debatable calls, you might hear me yelling at my tv. In the weeks to come, I'll expect there will be some people asking me (maybe yelling at me) about my decisions as a leader in various contexts. That's just fine with me!

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Book Review: Love Does by Bob Goff

Bob Goff's book Love Does is exceptional! Easy-to-read chapters taking just a few minutes to read start with a provocative two line quote, continue with an interesting, often entertaining adventure tale, and draw a challenging spiritual conclusion (aka punch line). From the Young Life worker who first spent time with Bob, showing him the love offered by Immanual to his waiting in the hall story eventually allowing him to enter law school, Goff's stories are a wonderful blend of humorous and touching, illustrating precisely a powerful spiritual truth. Indeed, he accomplishes his purpose of explaining how to live an incredible life in an ordinary world. Once you start reading, you certainly cannot end mid-chapter, and its practically torture to put the book down after only a couple chapters. At the same time, it is consistent and biblically accurate making a superb resource that might be this year's graduation gift to our high school students. I highly recommend this book for anyone, regardless of age, gender, or faith perspective.