Referees & Announcers: Two of a Kind

Receptionist: "Who are You?"
Fletch: "Frita's boss."
Receptionist: "And who is Frita?"
Fletch: "My secretary."

This was the best circular logic I had seen until I just found out the test they give perspective football officials is they make them announce a game as well as an existing announcer, and that announcers, in order to be hired, only have to referee a mock game as well as existing officials. OK, while this was a ridiculously poor effort just to use a Fletch quote, if it were true, it would justify how they can possibly all suck so bad.

Let's start with announcers. It is clear that I am not a big fan of Theisman, Maguire, and Patrick, as I have blasted them before on this blog. However, I should not pick on those guys so much. Almost all of them are terrible. Last night I had to listen to Andre Ware pronounce Jared Zabransky's name as "Zam-bransky" about 200 times. This is Boise State's quarterback and best player. How can he not be prepared to announce his name right in a bowl game, or in any game he is being paid to announce for that matter. It is atrocious. Chris Spielman is absolutely terrible. Listening to the sounds of a dentist's drill during a root canal is more pleasant than listening to Spielman announce a game. And you wonder why a guy like Keith Jackson can't retire in peace? It is because there are like 1,000 telecasts per season and about 3 good announcers.

(As a complete aside, speaking of Keith Jackson, I just watched the Woody Hayes punch game vs. Clemson from 1978, and Woody took a big round house right at the kid, they showed two replays of it, and Keith Jackson and Ara Parsegian NEVER mention that the head coach just hit a player from the other team. Classic!)

How hard can this be? There must be about 20 million Americans that would want these jobs. Surely they can find like 10 teams of people who would actually be good at it out of those 20 million.....

I make this offer to ESPN: Stitzer and I will do football games for half of what you are paying your least paid team next season, and I guarantee you we will be more enjoyable and knowledgeable than your current crop of gups. Guaranteed. If nothing else, we will clearly have a loyal following of viewers if readership of this blog is any indication. Lago, are you out there? Sports guy, are you reading this? Somebody please make this happen.

I would expect this to generate many comments on announcers that you think suck or the few who are actually good, so get those comments rolling...

Onto officials. I am so sick and tired of watching referees decide the outcome of games instead of the players on the field because they make blunder after blunder on big calls. It is embarrassing. The first problems here is that these officials are not full time refs. They are full time teachers, doctors, bankers and lawyers who are just trying to make a few extra bucks by officiating games on the weekends. This has to stop. These conferences need to hire full time officials who are dedicated to this profession full time.

Watching the Michigan/Nebraska game was brutal. If I were a Michigan fan, I may have had a stroke watching the refs rob my team of a game. Not that Michigan did not make a lot of mistakes or could not have won in spite of these calls, but you can definitely argue that the officating factored into this outcome. It was deplorable. These clowns had no control over the game. Just once, I want to see someone like Lloyd Carr say "We made mistakes, but overall, the refs sucked. They cost us the game. We worked our butts off all year nd had this game taken from us because the refs could not do their job competently. They should all be fired." I think if Jim Mora, Sr. got hired by a Division 1-A college, we could have this result at some point within his first four games as a coach.

In the meantime, they may as well have the officials start announcing the games, and vice versa.