Former N.C. State players ejected from game

And now N.C. State is going to have a special honor for the '89 ACC title team, which featured Googs and Corchiani, at its next home game. Hilarious:

http://blogs.newsobserver.com/accnow/nc-state-to-honor-89-acc-title-team

 

And, given that NCSU is playing Chapel Hill, Hess could be assigned to the game. The unintentional comedy potential could be off the scale.

If Hess was looking to out-showboat Dick Paparo, he's well on his way.

 

There's no way on Earth that John Clougherty will assign Hess to Tuesday night's UNC-NCSU game.

 

But these assignments are usually planned far enough in advance. When the assignments were sent out, no one could have known how big a mess Karl Hess would make on Saturday.

Question is, is it practical or realistic for Clougherty to alter the officiating schedule if Hess is currently assigned to Raleigh?

 

The one mistake Hess did make - and Clougherty made this point - is that there is an intermediate step Hess should have taken, which was to contact the site manager.

As someone who has officiated at the low levels of HS basketball, knowing who is the site manager is a pre-game responsibility of an official. There are a couple of reasons to give some consideration to the official.

1. I have seen a coach who was serving as a radio commentator yell at a ref in a Division 3 college game. The coach/commentator yelled from press row, asking if the ref was related to the other team. He was admonished by a media member who said not to do that at the press table. After the game, the coach/commentator apologized to the admonisher and me, acknowledging he was wrong. What I asked him was how could he lose control given that he was a coach. He said it was difficult being on the sideline.

2. Even if Hess was too hasty, officials do not react well when they are taking heat because the team is playing lousy. I recall a coach complaining about the fact that there were eight fouls called on his team and none on the other team. I gave the tactful, I'm calling each play as I see it. What I was thinking was, "Coach, your kids are getting called for fouls because they can't play defense correctly - that isn't MY fault"

3. An official has to show they have control of the game. When I umpired softball, at first I didn't have a problem with curse words so long as they were adjectives. I was quickly corrected because allowing swear words showed a lack of control and wouldn't look good if a supervisor was watching me officiate. What we don't know is whether the two alumni were being idiots all game. If they were five or ten rows up, than maybe you could say Hess had "rabbit ears".However, where they were sitting it was apparent that they were guest of NC State and it was right near the scorer's table.

Hess may have overreacted, but you have to act like kind of an idiot to let it get to the point where you get thrown out.

 

Gold, your points are pretty good when talking about officials in general, but Hess is a unique case. Anybody who has seen many games he's called has to believe he probably threw those two out because he knew it would get people talking about him. He's been an attention-seeking clown for years and it's baffling why the ACC hires him to do its games.

 

As an official, one of the rules is "You don't listen to the fans."

I don't care if I get called a donkey-raping shit eater, I'm not running a fan.

I've got more important stuff going on in the game in front of me than to run a fan. If a game administrator wants to run them, fine.

The fans are the ones who look like idiots when they act like that.

 

If an ACC-level basketball official can't take some hazing from the fans, he has no business being an ACC-level official. Rabbit ears and a red ass, to boot.

And isn't Clougherty the guy who called that ticky-tack last-second foul on Seton Hall in the NCAA championship game against Michigan?

 

Let me just add that I really have no dog in the fight when it comes to ACC games other than my wife being in a better mood when Virginia wins, but Hess is the worst official I've seen at any level above high school JV.

I posted this on the other thread, but I was at an NC State-Georgia Tech game a while back where I became convinced Hess was intentionally making bad calls just to see what reaction he would get. I wish I was exaggerating how bad he is.

 

Yes. That was Clougherty.

 

Hess may very well be a bad official - sometimes they hang around too long or they get mental complexes. But I have to believe the alums may have said something out of line. The other thing is the ref has to communicate with the scorer's table.

As far as the donkey, if it is the NBA that sort of abuse is part of the job which you have to accept. If it is a school setting, it is a different story. They always tell refs to let the site manager handle it.

As a Seton Hall fan for more than 40 years, I know Clougherty is the official who sent Rumeal Robinson to the line for the winning free throws (ouch). But I also remember when they asked Seton Hall coach PJ Carlesimo about the call, he said Clougherty was an outstanding official and if that was what he called, PJ could accept it was the ref's best call.

If I step back from being a fan, I would have to say there were probably other mistakes Seton Hall made that night which had more effect than the call.

 

It's major college basketball. There were probably 10,000 people in the building who said something out of line. The bottom line is Karl Hess wants to get noticed. It's evident from the spastic way he signals obviously incorrect calls to seeking out two of the most well known people in the stands and making a show of ejecting them.