The following article is the first in a series based on a two-year, non-participant observation study of more than 20 officials’ organizations in basketball and baseball. The work is theoretical and abstract and resulted in a 400-page report, from which this information has been obtained.
__Dr. Askins is a social psychologist and works in the department of Social Sciences at Missouri Western State College in St. Joseph, Mo. He is a baseball umpire and has worked basketball. He warns: "This material may represent a view of officiating that is foreign to most officials because it is written from the point of view of a social psychologist. Many of the ideas and descriptions do not follow the general prescriptions found in manuals and may be controversial, if not offensive to some."
__The first installment covers such topics as: How and why officials make mistakes; crowd influences on objectivity; do officials have slumps; Why people officiate; balancing calls and the effects of praise on an official’s calls.

Future segments will deal with subjects such as: Personality requirements of officiating; dramatics and mechanics of officiating; pressure groups — coaches, players and crowds; officials: old, new and female; and care and training of sports officials.
__Question: Why do officials in sporting events make so many mistakes?
__Answer: They don’t. Many of the assumed mistakes reflect an audience’s assumption that their perception of an event is true and uncontaminated by personal bias. In psychology this is called the ego-centric bias of perception. Further, such a question presupposes that events in athletic contests are similar to objects in the physical environment. This is not the case. In the world of real objects there exists no such thing as a stolen base, an offensive foul or a holding violation. These events are subjective and arbitrary. (Even the permanence of instant replays is but a single perspective of movement, which is often more confusing than clarifying.) They can only be understood in the order they occur by individuals who have been schooled in their identification.
__If you doubt this statement, consider the following possibilities. First, have an individual who has never seen a basketball game thoroughly learn the rules, and then try to officiate such a game. It would be comedic to say the least. Rulebooks and training manuals only prescribe what should be done when an event occurs. They do not tell you how to identify the event. Secondly, take a motion picture of a contest. Then cut each frame from the film and mix them so that they are not in their original sequence. Once this is done, ask someone who is very knowledgeable about the sport to describe the contest as it happened from the reorganized frames. It cannot be done.
__The point of these examples is that the events in sports contests are not to be seen or understood in and of themselves, as are physical objects, but only within the framework of preceding and succeeding events.
__Nor do they fall into neat classifications of occurring or not occurring. They are not so distinct. Instead, most events are events by degree rather than kind. For example, every official in football knows that a holding violation could be called on most plays, and every basketball official realizes he could call any instance of contact a foul. To do so however, would make a travesty of the game. In each sport, events must be judged not on their occurrence but on their relevance.
__As a result, many of the mistakes audiences assume officials make are not disagreements as to whether an event occurred or not but whether a particular penalty should have been administered. Here is where most audiences fail to understand the range of stances official’s use in classifying an event.
__Even when there is agreement by all audiences (officials, coaches, players and spectators) as to what has taken place, the official’s response is not automatic. For example, any single event may bring forth a variety of reactions depending upon what the official sees to be the needs of the moment. To be more specific, contact between players of opposing teams, in most sports, may be responded to by an official with:
__1. A literal interpretation of the rules (bureaucratic appeal), which would require some infraction being called.
__2. An application of the spirit of the rules (appeal to common sense) in which case an infraction may or may not be enforced.
__3. A stance which supports the audience’s demands for consistency (appeal to justice)
__4. A ruling which upholds the official’s obligation to maintain control over the game (appeal to order).
__It should be clear from the different stances available to officials that even when there is consensus as to what has occurred there may be considerable disagreement as to what should be done about it. A response based upon one type of appeal may be contrary to a response based upon any of the other possible appeals.
__More frequently, however, events are simply seen as different by the various audiences, depending on their position of observation and personal bias. Unlike physical objects, social events cannot be touched, held, studied at rest, or observed from their backside. Even something as mundane as contact is never actually seen. It must be inferred. Consequently, the margin for disagreement is great.
__Once these features of perception and interpretation are understood it becomes more and more difficult to simply classify a particular ruling by an official as a mistake.
__This is not to suggest that officials do not make mistakes. They do. They possess no special innate understanding of events, no x-ray vision, or special objectivity which enables them to perform in other than a typically human manner. They are forced to make decisions (even a no-decision is taken by audiences as a decision of sorts) about events which are social in nature under the limitations of time and under the pressures of contaminating influences. As a result they make the same errors of judgment that all humans make under these conditions. Yet they make fewer errors than is supposed because experience provides them with a means of making sense out of that chaos of movement we call an athletic contest.
__Question: Are officials influenced or intimidated by coaches, players or crowds?
__Answer: Yes. Contrary to what most officials claim publicly, the various audiences have an impact upon their work. Exactly how much and in what way depends upon the official, the status of the various audiences, and the nature of the influencing activities. To suggest that officials are not influenced by audiences is to suggest they are not aware of their presence and this is not the case.
__During the course of any contest there are many incidents which appear ambiguous, even to veteran officials. When this occurs, officials do basically what all humans do in such situations, i.e., they seek clarification through any means available at the time. Crowd reaction may sometimes provide the cue, which prompts their decision. This could become a part of the so-called homecourt advantage.
__It is not being suggested here that officials necessarily respond to such situations in the direction of the most intimidating audience. They simply take the pressure from these audiences as information to be considered in making their Judgment. Frequently such pressure is taken as a basis for rendering a decision that is contrary to the sentiments of that audience. Not necessarily as retaliation, but as part of information gathering.
__Experience frees most officials from a great deal of dependency upon such information, but not all. Certain audiences are almost impossible to ignore because of their reputation. There can be little question that officials are more often influenced by a Ted Williams, a John Wooden or a Woody Hayes than they are by relative unknowns.
__Sometimes the influence of an audience violates the official’s sense of justice. When this is the case the official’s response may very well be retaliatory, even if not consciously so. It is a part of the official’s defensive posture to ward off unfair criticism by demonstrating publicly that efforts to intimidate him are ineffective. Indeed, organizations responsible for making game assignments reward such displays of independence with better scheduling.
__Even among officials themselves a statement suggesting retaliation is not looked upon as a violation of objectivity but an administration of justice. Statements such as, "I finally nailed that bastard for getting on me earlier," are neither uncommon nor unacceptable accounts for some punitive actions. Again, officials tend to behave in typically human ways, though the ideals to which they subscribe would have it otherwise.
__Question: Does this mean that officials are not objective?
__Answer: Yes, if by objective you mean they can somehow transcend the influences of the moment and adopt a stance, which is neutral and unbiased. This is a human impossibility and to assume otherwise is to misunderstand the nature of perception and meaning.
__To put this in familiar language, "You have to come from somewhere" and to do so precludes the possibility of assuming other, equally legitimate, stances. The best an official can ever hope to do is to be aware of his own bias and hopefully make necessary compensations. This is certainly not being objective as the term is commonly intended but it may be fair, and that is the best that an official can hope for.
__Question: If all officials want to be fair why are some better than others?
__Answer: Those who are generally considered top officials are able to concentrate on the events as they occur. As a result, they are able to ignore other influences for longer periods of time. Jerry West, coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, recently stated that, "Arguing with officials simply breaks their concentration and may cause them to blow the next ten calls in a row." There is considerable truth to this. Once an official fails to concentrate on the events of the game, his calls become incongruous and, worse, leave him open to self-doubt.
__Most audiences believe officials should approach their assignments with an open mind. That is, they should be tolerant and grant some credibility to opposing opinions. In many cases such openness is highly detrimental to both the performance and the career of an official. A certain amount of arrogance must be maintained in order to perform successfully. Without it an official may very well come to believe the criticism he receives has some merit. Every year there are many young officials who leave officiating disillusioned because they fail to develop and maintain the necessary defensive tactics.
__Most veteran officials come to regard the various audiences as adversaries. This aids them in minimizing criticism and administering decisions fairly.
__The opening statements of a speaker at a recent meeting of basketball officials on the west coast underscores this point. "Unless you realize that when you throw the ball up at the beginning of a game every coach becomes a sonofabitch, you will not last long as a basketball official."
__Yet, even the most experienced official finds it difficult to maintain the necessary stance for an entire ball game, let alone an entire season. And when he lets his guard down he becomes susceptible to self-doubt and perceptual slumps.
__Question: Do you mean that officials have slumps in the same way that athletes do?
__Answer: Yes. In many respects officials are subject to the same performance pressures and problems as athletes. The greater their ability to ignore criticism by minimizing its importance the better they will be able to concentrate solely on their work.
__But it is not easy to "get up" for every game. And when they do not, they are open to the slumps experienced by athletes.
__For this reason it is a good practice for those making game assignments to provide each official with what might be considered a revitalization break or a big game. Thus officials can avoid the tedium of too many games and experience the stimulation of an exceptional assignment.
__Every person who has participated in sports has experienced these perceptual slumps whether he be a batter in baseball, a shooter in basketball, or a passer in football. There seems to be no way in which to permanently avoid such periods of poor performance. The best that can be accomplished is to reduce the duration and the severity of the condition. Audiences, however, are seldom aware that officials experience such states and are never tolerant of them.
__Question: If officiating is so difficult and unrewarding why do people do it?
__Answer: There are probably as many reasons as there are officials but a few of the more prominent include: earning extra money, remaining close to athletics in some capacity, and enjoying a position of some status and power.
__A most interesting question is why do they remain in officiating? Unlike the former question, which tends to focus upon the obvious explanations for officiating, this question directs our attention to the more latent functions of such activities. Long after officials have become disillusioned over many aspects of their occupation and bored with others they remain enthusiastic about officiating. Why?
__The answer seems to lie in the nature of the activity itself. The disagreeable features of officiating become the attraction. Officials come to see themselves as technicians of a very special kind; technicians of social competence under stress.
__In a society which provides individuals with little opportunity to test their mettle in the social arena, officiating offers a unique experience. It is a trial by fire, a rite of passage for those willing to subject themselves to the public ridicule they will inevitably undergo. The most prestigious quality an official can have is the ability to render decisions under difficult conditions (i.e., hostile audiences). This indicates great social independence.
__Question: In their attempt to be fair, do officials ever try to make up for a bad call by giving the wronged party the benefit of the doubt on a later call?
__Answer: If you mean do officials balance their calls the answer is yes, although no official will admit to doing this intentionally. Further, it should be pointed out that it is generally unpremeditated and non-malicious in nature. It results from the general assumption by most people that the world in which they live is mechanistic in nature and operates according to certain laws of probability. (In lay terms we simply say "the odds are . . ." or "things will even out.") An official is no different. He believes that events will balance out and that good officiating will reflect that balance. Being confronted with ambiguous events in every contest, balancing becomes a natural consequence of this presupposition of the nature of things.
__We might also add that it is the presupposition of audiences as well.
__Again, the behavior of officials demonstrates an attempt to be fair rather than objective.
__Question: Will officials ever show favoritism to those who praise their work?
__Answer: Some will.
__Ask yourself if you tend to be more favorably disposed toward those who like you, or toward those who violate your sense of justice in some way. The answer is obvious. However, unlike the lay person, good officials recognize the dangers in accepting praise from audiences. Once an official comes to place legitimacy in praise, his work tends to reflect what he believes are the views of those who do the praising. This is as unacceptable as making decisions in order to avoid the criticism of the more hostile audiences. Playing to a particular audience is the most objectionable of all behaviors within the community of officials. Most highly rated officials find it more beneficial to their work to assume an "I don’t give a damn what they think" stance.
__Of course, it is difficult to adopt such a perspective if coaches determine the assignment of officials. Under such circumstances fairness is difficult to maintain.
__Question: Isn’t what you describe considerably different from what officials are supposed to be?
__Answer: Most audiences (including officials themselves) have a somewhat idealistic notion of what an official’s attitudes and performance should be. Seldom, if ever, does behavior coincide with such ideals. This should not be seen as a shortcoming in human performance but as an indication that the ideals are irrelevant. Officials are simply human beings doing human things in a human way, and no more.

Observations (Referee 11/78-6/79): 11/78, 12/78, 1/79, 2/79, 3/79, 4/79, 6/79