Happy Friday, everyone. For this edition of the random questions, I am joined by 4 people. We have Voodoo 5 from the South Florida blog Voodoo 5, Bucky Cooper, Senator Giggity, and Mark. The first thing I ever had linked was an interview with Voodoo on his old site. Bucky wrote a report on the summer league, as seen on Beracats Blog. The Senator is a prodigious tweeter. God that sounds dirty. Mark is a guy who volunteered to answer the questions, so don’t yell at him when all his answers are wrong.
Officiating in pro, and college, sports has had it’s weakness exposed with the burgeoning technology. Do you think there are easy ways to fix this? Should there be an age limit on officials? Should there be a cap on how many games they can work (if there isn’t one)?
Voodoo: Sure — more accountability. Players get benched or waived for poor performance, and they get suspended for mouthing off to the officials. When does that ever happen to the officials? Especially basketball and baseball, whose officials are so full of themselves (Joey Crawford, Joe West, etc.) When an umpire gets to pick a fight with a manager and it’s the manager who gets suspended for getting sucked into it, that’s awful.
Also the college hoops referee situation is a disaster and needs to be overhauled. The refs are basically mercenaries who work 90 games a season for the cash. (By the way, people think basketball leagues have their own officials, but that’s not true. Tim Higgins and Jim Burr are free to screw up calls for any conference in America, not just the Big East. Maybe that’s part of the problem. Assign them to one league and they work fewer games, they get used to the style of play, and calls get more consistent.)
Senator: Having no knowledge of the regulations placed upon officials, I would suggest regular tests of vision, reaction time & cognitive ability along with a mandatory retirement age of 60. There should be a moratorium on games coaches in a given time period (2-4 weeks perhaps) along with an annual review of refs that have more than an average number of questionable calls during the season.
Bucky: There are no easy ways to fix officiating without using more instant replay. Age honestly doesn’t matter uness they’re getting too old to a point where it affects their calls. Being overweight or basketball should be banned, having bad vision for baseball is a no no. There should be a certain fitness test for each sport that the ump/ref needs to complete before each season in order to officiate. The only cap that needs to be placed would be NCAA basketball, but if believe that is not necessary.
Mark: Easy like a fat guy knowing how to get thinner but choosing not to? Or, easy like Jennifer Aniston? In either case, it comes down to desire. As applied to professional sports, this means the governing body has got to want to change and I do not think baseball, the only real holdout of the big three, wants to. I almost feel like they live by the no publicity is bad publicity mantra. The umpires, like it or not, are part of the show and they create buzz. So long story short, yes, there are easy ways to fix it. But behind closed doors, I do not think they want to.
Should there be an age limit on officials? Should there be a cap on how many games they can work (if there isn’t one)? No and No. But, there should be repercussions if they routinely screw the pooch. Figuratively and/or literally.
The latest NCAA video game hit shelves a couple weeks ago. How old is too old to be playing video games? Is there an age where it stops being cool?
V5: I think it’s getting higher and higher. Kids who grew up playing video games keep playing them into their 30s and 40s and most people are OK with that. But dads probably shouldn’t be playing Madden against their kids. I think that’s the limit right there.
Since you brought it up, NCAA 12 is TERRIBLE. I stopped playing it cold turkey after about two weeks of trying not to suck at it. What I hate the most is that there’s no way to set up the difficulty and the AI sliders to separate good defense from superhuman defense that reacts before you even act. They’ll turn for the ball when their back is turned to the receiver, defensive linemen can bat down passes 20 yards downfield, corners run routes better than the receivers, they beat your O-line all the time… it’s awful. It’s all animation-driven and not realistic in any way. (NOTE: I asked this question just so he would rant on that game)
SG: As long as you’re enjoying it, who cares, but there is a line easily crossed. When you play way too much or it’s all you can talk about, then it becomes uncool. Don’t be that guy.
BC: You are never too old to stop playing video games. Should a 27 year old be playing NCAA football for 6 hours a day? no. As long as you regulate how much you play I think it’s still cool to play video games no matter how old you are.
MS: I am 40 and still play. Part of the reason is because I enjoy it. The other is that I feel it keeps me mentally sharp(er) as I get older. This said, never is it more obviously that I am slowing down than when I get smoked by an 8 year while playing (insert game title here).
Is there a band, or singer, you liked when you were younger but can’t stand at all now?
V5: Not really. I stopped following current music for a long time in the 90s and I never totally went back to it. There’s a big gap on my iPod of music between 1989 and 2000. Basically the period of time where no one invited me to parties.
SG: Not really. While my musical tastes have changed greatly, there isn’t a single artist I can’t really stand. Unless you count the WWF soundtrack.
BC: Good Charlotte is a band I enjoyed when I was little and now you couldn’t pay me to listen to one of their song, my mistake.
MS: Mike Portnoy, drummer for Dream Theater. Was a hero to me. Now an EPIC douche’.
How long can you have fun being in an art museum?
V5: Depends on what kind of art museum. The newer the art, the more I like it. Everything before the Impressionists is just boring to me, it’s nothing but paintings and sculptures of nobility, rich people, and religious figures. I get bored very easily in those exhibitions. Impressionist works are fantastic, I love photography, and modern art is great too. My wife and I went to Paris for our honeymoon and the older the art was, the less I enjoyed the museum. I wasn’t all that excited about the Louvre, but I would have stayed in the Centre Pompidou for a week if they’d let us.
SG: Depends how closely the guards are watching. Depends on the kind of art, if it’s enjoyable then I can walk around for hours.
BC: Art Mueseums are fun, for like 15 minutes, that’s all.
MS: Do I have my phone with me, or, do I have to pay attention? Am I going to get sex from my wife for going to the museum? Eh, in either case, I can entertain myself by looking at the girly men and manly flannel clad women pretending they know what they are looking at. i.e. Pretentious Pricks.
A hundred thanks to all 4 guys for volunteering. Be sure to check them all out on twitter, where they are linked up top. Be sure to check out my favorite USF blog Voodoo 5. Be especially sure to check it out when I run away with the gambling competition for the second year in a row. You can change the rules, but you can not change the inevitable. Thanks again to them, and thank you for checking out the site.
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