There is no bigger rallying cry in sports than “we got screwed by the officials.” Doesn’t matter the sport. Doesn’t matter the gender. Doesn’t matter the age group, the state or number of people in the stands, whether the popcorn is good or there’s no popcorn available.

 

The standard is the same. It’s the official’s fault.

 

Here’s the thing. After much reflection and many years watching games (almost exclusively with no skin in the contests), it’s almost 100 percent never the official’s fault.

 

In my decades of watching and covering sports, I can count on one hand the times where I actually thought officiating was so porous it played the key factor in determining the outcome of a game. Ironically, they’ve all been at the state high school basketball tournament in Charleston and the worst of all goes back to the 1990s and didn’t involve a team within two hours of Harrison County.

 

That doesn’t mean sometimes I scratch my head at the officiating because I’ve been treated to a whole lot of stinkers over the years. Rather, it just means I don’t think they influence a game and the outcome as much as most believe they do. More importantly, problems with officiating miscues are almost exclusively human error as opposed to errors of intent.

 

I bring this up as the result of the recent situation involving the state cheerleading competition. Some of you may know – and some may not – that there were nine teams competing this year in Class AA as opposed to the eight as spelled out by the West Virginia Secondary Schools Activities Commission.

 

The reason for that was one of the teams that didn’t initially qualify for the state competition, Lincoln County, missed the cut due to a point violation because all three of the cheerleading judges ruled their performance was four-tenths of a second over the allotted time. The WVSSAC stood behind that decision as they should.

 

Before going further, this isn’t an indictment of cheerleading. This isn’t an indictment of Lincoln County. It’s not an indictment of their student-athletes of their coach. Rather, it’s a revelation that Pandora’s Box in sports may have been opened and getting it closed again isn’t going to happen with a higher ruling of say the West Virginia Supreme Court.

 

Lincoln County believed the judges were wrong. A circuit judge concurred. The WVSSAC didn’t fight it to stop Lincoln County from going to Charleston and the solution was to simply have three teams from the region compete.

 

And before going further, I don’t blame the WVSSAC here. They’ve already had a situation (albeit for different reasons) where a cheerleading competition and a lawsuit resulted in a delay for months of a state cheer event. They may say that wasn’t part of the reasoning, but I don’t think anyone involved could pass the red face test if that was put them.

 

My problem isn’t that a coach did what they could to get their team to the state believing it was an error of the timing and the judges whether it was or wasn't. My problem is that there are literally dozens of games in every sport, in every year, where human error comes into play at the last moment.

 

I’ve watched a team make it to the state tournament on a made 3-point basket that was shot from 15 feet. I’ve watched a buzzer beater from 30 feet still in the hand of the player well after the buzzer and red light go on to move to a higher seed in a sectional tournament and avoid a sectional elimination at the favorite of the section. I’ve seen football plays in the final seconds where a clock operator – both working in favor of the home and away team – either allow a team a few extra seconds to spike the ball for a game-winning score or kept the clock running to nullify such a possibility.

 

This isn’t me just thinking it happened. This is me thinking it happened followed by indisputable video proof.

 

Proof or not, it’s human error. And I’m convinced, again, most of it is simply error with no malice.

 

So what’s next? What happens when video replay clearly shows a shot should have counted and the officials waved it off and a team is eliminated? What happens when video shows a swimmer taking off early and there’s no call and the swimmer or their relay team wins by a hundredth of a second for a state title or a chance to even get there? What if a photo clearly shows the clock at zero and the ball’s not snapped in a football game where the winner goes to the postseason and the loser stays home?

 

And honestly, does it stop there? Could a coach challenge a game-winning basket because video clearly shows the player took five steps? Would a judge allow it?

 

I don’t know if it will happen. I don’t if a coach would consider challenging anything under any of the scenarios I’ve spelled out above. What I do know is that this is the first time I can recall the “human error” of those left to officiate – or judge in this case – the event was legally challenged.

 

Maybe I’m wrong and it has happened before. What I do know is whether it has or hasn’t, it’s going to happen again. And in the end, it’s going to be bad for everyone.

 

Whether you like the WVSSAC or not, they’re the arbitrator of sports in West Virginia. They represent the schools on behalf of the principals and their rulings should stand – good or bad. I always thought that was the case until the final fall sports competition of 2018.

 

Let’s hope the situation was an anomaly. Let’s hope Pandora’s Box is closed. In our all-too-often litigious world, I have a bad feeling this may just be the beginning. I hope I’m wrong.

 

Editor's Note: Photos by www.benqueenphotography.com.