Fan Feedback

UMaine fans feel cold

My family and I try to attend three or four athletic events a year at the University of Maine in Orono, as we did a recent men’s basketball game vs. Binghamton.

It wasn’t a very pleasant experience – except for the victory!

My wife wanted to leave Alfond Arena early because she wasn’t dressed warmly enough and felt as though she was catching a cold. Does UMaine issue flu shots upon purchase of basketball season tickets? If not, maybe they should.

Edwin A. Rogers

Bath

Referees showed value of consistency at game

I recently read the letter (BDN, Jan. 16) from a woman from Cherryfield about the officiating at a game she attended, the heading was “Referees shouldn’t decide games.” The game she described had a feel of a game I recently scouted for a friend of mine who is a varsity coach, so after checking thoroughly I believe this is the same game that I scouted. Only with having no alliance to either team, I walked away with quite a different viewpoint of the game.

From my viewpoint, it was a reasonably well-officiated game. According to my stat book, turnovers were very close to being the same and at the end of the third quarter, the home team shot four foul shots in the game while the visiting team attempted six free throws. The two stats tell me the officiating was fair and consistent for both teams. Any coach will tell you that is the main concern you have in officiating is consistency.

The problem began in the fourth quarter when it became obvious the home team was going to win and the visiting team lost all composure. The away team committed multiple intentional fouls with no attempt to play the ball, but with what seemed to be the intent to commit very hard fouls, balls slammed to the floor, resulting in a technical foul and rightly so. But the worst part of the night was the behavior of the bench players who were using obscene language and gestures to the officials and home team.

The woman wrote about sportsmanship and being a good role model for young athletes, I might suggest the woman take a long look at her team and fans before she takes this attitude with referees and other teams and their coaches.

The one part of the letter I did agree with is, “I do not feel the home team coach should consider this a good win either.” I feel he should consider this an outstanding victory for his team because his team did not sink to that level of play and conducted themselves with the utmost integrity and sportsmanship.

I would like to commend the home team and its coach for showing great discipline and sportsmanship in a very bad and, at times, out-of-control situation.

Douglas Gray

Frankfort

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