#651 misery

Whether you were a sports fan or not, all the talk around the office yesterday was about the controversial call in the boy's basketball state tournament game.  Our local team, a favorite to win the title, lost the game on a called foul.

Nothing unusual about that, except that the foul was called with 0.5 (one-half of a second) left in the game after the opponent just made a basket.  It wasn't called in the act of shooting, so the basket counted and the free throw counted. Thus, our boys lost by one when they were ahead by three with literally one second left on the clock.  In the state tournament semifinals.  It was heartbreaking.  Even the winning coach said he had only seen that call one time in his career.  

This isn't the first time that an obscure, but existing, rule was enforced in a high-stakes game.  The Cardinals benefited from it in October*, but it impacted one game, not the entire season.  

Why did the official make the judgment to call that play at that moment?  He certainly could have given the game a chance to go into overtime and let a winner emerge without question.  One of the players said it best: "It's not that Valley didn't deserve to win, just not that way."

When you are in a position to make judgments, you certainly can do what it "right".  But before you come down with the heavy hand, ask yourself what cost your decision will have.  There is the letter of the law, and then there is the spirit of the law.  And there are dreams of 
15/16/17 year olds that were either shattered or realized under a cloud of doubt because of one whistle with a half-second remaining.

-- beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com

@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

*Blog #514, rule 7.06, 10/28/13  

Source:  .5 seconds of misery, by Andy Piper, Telegraph Herald, March 13, 2014