Editor's Note: We changed the title of the thread to be more descriptive. Original title was "Mallard Creek DQ." Here is an article about the DQ: http://charlotteobserver.com/s...
Here is a new video showing what the runner in question did earlier in the meet after winning the 300 hurdles. The official claim she warned him after that win even though what he did in that win seems fine: https://x.com/Sheena_Marie3/st...
Bunch of old white man officials nonsense. Old white male officials, get off my dang lawn telling the yutes these days to get off your dang lawn! <shakes middle-aged white man fist>
The official who made the call is black and the athlete is black.
Doesn't mean it's not rooted in racism. If you're from the south and have lived in a majority black part of said south then you may understand this. Then again, maybe not; you'd have to be curious about the world to do so, and plenty of folks are seriously incurious.
Many officiating folks mean well. Some love the power trip. Some mean well, but still let their biases (race, sex, body size, body type, hate for a specific athlete or school, hate for a specific community, etc) and the power they have trip them.
And to those who keep complaining about the "mean old guys" who are ruining track and field, I have a simple question. Where are you? Why don't I see you on the track? I've been doing this for many years at the college and high school levels and all I see is the group of us getting older and older. Where is the young blood to replace us? It's time you get off your butts, get out of the stands, and go work some 12-hour days under the hot sun for a cold sandwich, a warm drink, a bag of chips, and maybe the occasional "thank you" from an athlete or coach. I would love to sit in the stands for a change and watch the races, but instead I miss almost all of them because I am too busy running my event. I would love to see some younger blood in the officials' room. What is going to happen when all of us are gone? Are you going to volunteer to be one of those "mean old men" or are you going to be fine with nobody officiating at meets at all? Maybe T&F can become like a pick-up basketball game, where players call their own fouls. That doesn't sound like it would result in any controversies.
As for the part of the post on the process, you are correct. However, I think you may also know that not all meets actually follow things like they should. One would except the State Finals to be an exception, but I've seen enough to not discount errors in the process. However, that aside, the quoted bit is the REAL thing:
You are correct. All of us complaining about old officials being cranks need to get out and participate.
Get certified—with USATF and/or your state officiating. I can attest to how hard it is to find officials for track meets and XC meets. We need more.
I do hope I can do so once my kids graduate, but I also recognize that I want to see them race and participate for now.
In the mean time, I am trying to do more with regional USATF governing body, and with the kids in my local area.
Participation is the key to improvement. If you don't like how the officiating is going, or how governing bodies like USATF are operating, then you should put your actions where your words are and participate to make improvements.
The sport of track and field needs your actions more than your words on a LetsRun forum (for all LetsRun, love it or hate it, does truly benefit the sport—despite how it sometimes also detracts from it).
Thank you for your officiating! I know you guys get a lot of hate—like in this thread (even from me). But you do important work many of us shirk, and I do appreciate you and all the officials making this happen.
Still doesn't mean I won't call a bad decision a bad decision. Even so, that's part of any sport. Control the controllables, and if you're leaving it close enough for a ref's decision to change the outcome then you left it too close.
Are we really citing Jason Whitlock as a source these days? Big talk from a guy who makes a living out of a showboating grift with 0 legitimacy to do so. If there was ever a DQ to be had, it’d be him from commenting on any topic related to sport. You know precisely why he wanted to see the athlete DQed, and it isn’t for “the rules.” The conservative grift extends farther than I thought.
True colors shown, Rojo. Nobody with any sense would want this kid to be DQed, much less for the “extra showboating.” Heaven forbid people have emotions and celebrate. The official selectively applied the rules, and it won’t stand on appeal.
I’ve read a number of articles about this situation and both athlete and coach have stayed silent on whether the athlete was given a warning after the 300 hurdles about celebrations. If there was no warning given to the athlete, the coach would have been bellowing that information from the rooftop.
On its face, the dq seems ridiculous. But given a prior warning, what happened makes perfect sense. FAFO.
What are you talking about? it's literally in a link on the front page of this website where the coach says he was never told a warning and the athlete told the coach he was never given a warning. You don't even need to click on the link, it's in the quoted text below it.
Are DQs for this able to be appealed at the meet in NC? Or is this one of the rules where the official has final say immediately?
I couldn’t imagine winning a state championship in this manner if I’m the coach of the team who got bumped up for the Team Title. I honestly don’t think I’d accept it and would have argued that they shouldn’t have been DQ’d on the spot.
Earlier in the meet he apparently did something similar and was told to cool it, yep, a warning.
He was a jerk and it cost him/team.
except that's not what happened. Him and his coach both said he wasn't given a warning earlier, but even if you think they are lying it wasn't something similar. Everyone in here is saying all he had to do was wait until crossing the line before celebrating and he would have been fine. But that's exactly what he did earlier and that apparently wasn't fine either.
They appealed to the NCHSAA which i guess will go in front of an independent appeals panel. But there is no precedent for overturning an official decision made during the meet that i'm aware of.
There is an appeals process for during the meet which they used, but per the coach it turned into a he-said, she-said involving the earlier warning and the head official chose to side with the official who flagged him in the 4x4 and kept the DQ.
Earlier in the meet he apparently did something similar and was told to cool it, yep, a warning.
He was a jerk and it cost him/team.
except that's not what happened. Him and his coach both said he wasn't given a warning earlier, but even if you think they are lying it wasn't something similar. Everyone in here is saying all he had to do was wait until crossing the line before celebrating and he would have been fine. But that's exactly what he did earlier and that apparently wasn't fine either.
Thats not what I heard, it was he pulled some sort of BS and was told to be cool. So....?
Bottom line.....the kid was being a punk,and it cost him/them.
except that's not what happened. Him and his coach both said he wasn't given a warning earlier, but even if you think they are lying it wasn't something similar. Everyone in here is saying all he had to do was wait until crossing the line before celebrating and he would have been fine. But that's exactly what he did earlier and that apparently wasn't fine either.
Thats not what I heard, it was he pulled some sort of BS and was told to be cool. So....?
Bottom line.....the kid was being a punk,and it cost him/them.
I mean you can read the articles. The coach is very clearly stating that he was never warned. He said the official is supposed to inform the coach of the warning and that never happened and the kid told him he was never warned.
But even if you think he is lying, what exactly did this kid do that makes him a punk?
There are numerous things that are being overlooked, most importantly (1) the fact that officials do not make rules; they only enforce them, (2) the interpretation of rules is not determined by the officials; it is determined by the meet director/games committee, and (3) the full process for a DQ.
1) Officials do not have any say in the writing of the rules and it is not their job to enforce/not enforce only those that they agree with. Getting upset with an official for enforcing a rule is like getting upset with a police officer for pulling you over for going over the speed limit. The officer did not determine the speed limit; someone above his level did. The officer is required to enforce the rule, even if he disagrees with it. If he doesn't then he is neglecting his duty and has no business serving as a police officer. Same goes for officials. In fact, this is specifically addressed in the NFHS Rules Book, Rule 3-2: "The meet referee, other meet officials, or the jury of appeals shall not set aside any rule." There are many rules that a lot of us do not agree with but we enforce them anyway because we are required to. A perfect example is the elimination of five-alive for vertical jumps in the NCAA. I love five-alive, as do nearly every collegiate pole vaulter I have ever worked with. If I have a group of 45 vaulters and every one of them and their coaches wanted me to do five-alive, I still cannot do it, because the Rules Book was amended a couple years ago and specifically states that the use of five-alive is "not allowed." If I don't conduct the competition according to the rules, I risk causing vaulters' marks to not be accepted by the NCAA. And don't get me started on some of the uniform rules. I hate them, but I enforce them because I do not have the authority to not enforce them. Any official who selectively decides to only enforce rules that he/she agrees needs to leave the job.
2) Some rules are black and white and some are gray; Rule 4-6 is very gray and open to interpretation. What exactly is "unsporting" behavior and "unacceptable" behavior? Some examples are given in the rules themselves, but the possible situations are almost limitless. How this rule is applied is up to the games committee or meet director. If the meet director tells the officials, "There is zero tolerance - any celebration before crossing the finish line is 'unacceptable behavior'," then this is how the officials will enforce it. According to another poster who was supposedly at the coaches meeting, this is what they were told. The official was simple doing her job by enforcing the rule as interpreted by the meet director. If you have a beef with the way the rule was enforced, you need to take that up with the director.
3) Contrary to what a lot of you who have never officiated think, NO umpire disqualifies a runner; only the referee can do this. The umpire who raised the yellow flag did NOT disqualify the runner. The process is straight forward - the umpire reports what he saw to the head umpire, who then presents this information to the referee. The referee then makes a decision based on this report. But wait! The process is not over. Because then the inevitable appeal will be filed, and not official, not even the referee, has any part of this process. The Jury of Appeals, which at HS state meets usually consists of the meet director, a representative from the state association, maybe a highly respected retired coach, etc., addresses the appeal and has the option to concur with the referee's decision or overturn it. In the case of this relay, the umpire, referee, and the jury of appeals all agreed with the decision to disqualify the runner. But, like the police officer who pulls you over, the only person who gets targeted is the umpire doing her assigned duty.
Despite what you read online, the warning had absolutely nothing to do with the DQ. The NFHS Case Book specifically states, "There is no provision that a warning must precede a disqualification." The fact that he was given a warning earlier and still did what he did just makes it look worse for the athlete. It borders on "willful failure to follow the directions of a meet official"- which is word for word from the definition of "unacceptable behavior."
And to those who keep complaining about the "mean old guys" who are ruining track and field, I have a simple question. Where are you? Why don't I see you on the track? I've been doing this for many years at the college and high school levels and all I see is the group of us getting older and older. Where is the young blood to replace us? It's time you get off your butts, get out of the stands, and go work some 12-hour days under the hot sun for a cold sandwich, a warm drink, a bag of chips, and maybe the occasional "thank you" from an athlete or coach. I would love to sit in the stands for a change and watch the races, but instead I miss almost all of them because I am too busy running my event. I would love to see some younger blood in the officials' room. What is going to happen when all of us are gone? Are you going to volunteer to be one of those "mean old men" or are you going to be fine with nobody officiating at meets at all? Maybe T&F can become like a pick-up basketball game, where players call their own fouls. That doesn't sound like it would result in any controversies.
Second, thank you for explaining the actual chain of command. People here are acting like one power-tripping umpire single-handedly ruined these kids' season. Knowing that a yellow flag has to go through the head umpire, then the referee, and then get upheld by an entire Jury of Appeals means multiple seasoned people looked at it and agreed a rule was broken based on the directives they were given.
My thought all along has been that it wasn't one rogue official idiotically dqing something that shouldn't have even gotten a puzzled face and that there were levels of officials idiotically dqing something that shouldn't have even gotten a puzzled face. It was a team effort of idiots.
That doesn't make it any less idiotic.
Look at it this way...the idiots have made the national news.
I’ve read a number of articles about this situation and both athlete and coach have stayed silent on whether the athlete was given a warning after the 300 hurdles about celebrations. If there was no warning given to the athlete, the coach would have been bellowing that information from the rooftop.
On its face, the dq seems ridiculous. But given a prior warning, what happened makes perfect sense. FAFO.
What are you talking about? it's literally in a link on the front page of this website where the coach says he was never told a warning and the athlete told the coach he was never given a warning. You don't even need to click on the link, it's in the quoted text below it.
How can you give a warning about a rule that does no exist in the rule book in the middle of the competition? He wasn't doing anything unsportsmanlike and he didn't taunt anyone or curse at any official. Raising your hand isn't a reason for disqualification, especially if dozens of previous runners raised their hands before crossing he finish line in previous races at the same meet. Where in any track & field rules book does it say you can't raise your hand while running?
I’ve read a number of articles about this situation and both athlete and coach have stayed silent on whether the athlete was given a warning after the 300 hurdles about celebrations. If there was no warning given to the athlete, the coach would have been bellowing that information from the rooftop.
On its face, the dq seems ridiculous. But given a prior warning, what happened makes perfect sense. FAFO.
Look a little harder. The coach has denied there was any warning given.
A 'True Disqualification' is like Pornography, - "You know it when you see it!"
That 'DQ' was a childish and egregious nonsensical action by officials who are bored with themselves. Interview the other competing students, and ask them; "If they were physically inhibited or psychologically offended in anyway whatsoever?" - Their universal answer will be - "NO!" This is complete hair-splitting and asinine officiating on their part.
Correct.
Now Jason Whitlock seems to think the DQ was fine.
I disagree. But I do think the preening and celebrations are getting out of control in general - but not in this case. For example, What Trent McFarland did at Penn Relays - taunting - should be a DQ.
Whitlock has made a career out of taking the oppositional side to nearly any event...particularly if there's even a remote possibility it could be based on race. Why anyone pays any attention whatsoever to what he has to say baffles me.