Austin Hemmingson

ESCANABA — Over the last few days, I’ve been asked to give my opinion or say something strong regarding the officiating in Iron Mountain’s heartbreaking 53-52 loss to Pewamo-Westphalia in Saturday’s Division 3 boys’ basketball state championship game at the Breslin Center in East Lansing.

Let me assure you, I have strong opinions on officiating — maybe just not the ones you want to hear if you expect me to blast the officials from Saturday’s game.

This brings me to my biggest officiating pet peeve.

First off, officials have an extremely hard job. When I’ve covered area games I’ve joked with referees that you’re only doing a good job when nobody knows your name and you’re not talked about afterwards.

Imagine if every job was like that — you’re only doing good when nobody talks about you. Encouraging, right? Probably not so much.

Secondly, I recognize officials make a bunch of mistakes — they’re bound to. These aren’t professional referees getting sent out to cover local prep games. If you really think the integrity of the officials is the problem, I’d like to see you pay for the professional ones.

Except that doesn’t solve anything either.

Remember last season’s NFC championship game when the New Orleans Saints were robbed of a trip to the Super Bowl on a clearly missed pass interference call against the Los Angeles Rams?

Or for all the Detroit Lions’ fans out there, how about the 2015 Wild Card round when the Lions were driving with a lead late in the fourth quarter against the Dallas Cowboys and tight end Brandon Pettigrew was clearly interfered with, but the flag was picked up, essentially swinging all momentum to Dallas?

If you really want to take a trip down memory lane, remember when Detroit Tigers’ starting pitcher Armando Galarraga was robbed of a perfect game against the Cleveland Indians in 2010 due to a blown call at first base on the last out of the game. The runner was clearly out, but ruled safe.

You know what all these instances have in common? It’s probably not what you think.

In each example I just gave you, the play was deemed ‘unreviewable.’ Stop and think about that for just a second. A play that could determine who goes to the Super Bowl, who advances in the NFL playoffs or whether a pitcher gets a perfect game comes down to a play that can’t be reviewed?

It’s nonsense. I’ve been driving this train for my short time around sports, but it’s truly mind-boggling.

Therefore, it’s the guys who consider these plays ‘unreviewable’ that need to come under fire. Officials are imperfect and they make mistakes — some of them worse than others (like the Iron Mountain game).

Could you imagine if in the court system nobody could be convicted without video evidence because the case isn’t reviewable?

If ‘judgement’ calls can’t be reviewed, we’re going to continue to see this over and over. I can about guarantee by the end of the weekend someone will be sent home early from the NCAA basketball tournament due to this problem.

The counter-argument to this has always been, ‘well, you can’t review everything.’ This is true, but there’s something incomplete in this argument.

In football, coaches still only get two challenges. You just have to be more selective when you use them. In basketball, everything else is reviewed inside of two minutes anyways (at least at the higher levels).

So why is it so hard to review a controversial traveling call or an intentional foul like in Iron Mountain’s game? I’m not a rocket scientist but I think that could have made a difference. I’ve seen the replay 100 times, so I’m sure the officials have.

We have the technology, why not use it? For everyone accusing the refs of cheating Iron Mountain, your argument would have even more validation if they would’ve went to replay and still not overturned the traveling call. The lone exception to this is when you have instant replay, and still get it wrong. Then I have no sympathy for you. Translation — you folks should be for this too.

Major League Baseball took a major step forward by implementing instant replay in recent years since Galarraga’s bid for a perfect game was ruined. Have we heard about botched calls like that since?

I hope you see where I’m going with this — rules need to be changed. Rules that protect officials instead of ones that hang them out to dry when they make the wrong judgement call.

With just a little bit of common sense, the Saints would’ve been in the Super Bowl, the Lions probably would’ve beat the Cowboys, Galarraga would have a perfect game, and yes, Iron Mountain would probably be state champs.

You’re never going to get it all perfect, but there’s no excuse not to try.