What can be done to improve officiating? Quite a bit. Training, education, performance reviews and discipline for poor performance are as important to officiating competency as they are to any occupation. The NFL and all sports leagues do far too little in these areas of improving employee performance. Intelligent instructional design of training is almost non-existent, modern education and training methods -- such as skill-based training -- are barely used, and performance reviews are basic and hardly meaningful to improving performance. There is a lot the league can do in managing their important group of employees. Full-time employment and professionally-designed training and education would be a start. Rules changes and clarifications would also be important.

However, the news media also can play an important role. Investigative journalists have played an important role in our society in reporting on mistakes made by government officials or employees. Yet, when it comes to sports officials and officiating, the sports media have been lapdogs for the leagues. In virtually every game, one can point to all the mistakes a team made as justification for how the officials didn’t cost a team a game. While that is true, sports officials are making far too many mistakes...in every sport. Instead of apologizing for poor performance by saying “it didn’t cost team X the game” the sports media should be attacking officials and leagues for continuing to tolerate poor performance. I laugh whenever I hear a broadcaster, like a Dick Vitale for example, saying "that's a bad call" and then forgetting about it. One game recently, I counted vitale saying that 9 times, 7 of which were against the same team. That team lost the game by 2 points. Did those 7 bad calls cost the team the game? I think that kind of statement -- often uttered by media types -- misses the point.

Journalists that report on our government are not just reporters or apologists for poor performance, they are also agents of change. I suggest sports journalists and broadcasters should stop being apologists for the leagues and instead become agents for change. Whenever a sports journalist interviews a league official, the question should be asked. “What are you doing to improve officiating? What does it take for the league to fire its head of officials for failing to fix the problems? Why do you continue to tolerate so many mistakes without firing those responsible? How many more mistakes will the league allow before a new approach to officials training and education is established?

Another approach would be for the media during games to keep track of bad calls. At halftime and at the end of the game, give us the tally of how many bad calls went against each team. The more the media and broadcasters keep bad officiating front and center, the more heat will be applied to leagues to fix officiating. I would love to see "bad officiating calls" detail added to every box score of every game.

Rick Majerus said a few weeks ago during a game that "officiating doesn't affect the outcome of the game in 98% of games." Okay, Rick. That means that officials DO affect the outcome in 2% of the games. That amounts to 8 games out of the 400 college games each week. In a 20 week season, that amounts to over 150 college hoops games that the officials decide the outcome. And that's not a problem that the media ought to emphasize? Instead, the media apologizes for bad officiatng by saying crap like "the officials didn't decide the game and team X had plenty of chances to win"? It misses the point. The point is, teams should NOT have to overcome bad officiating. Especially considering this basic problem of employee competence and performance can be significantly improved.

The media should apply pressure to the leagues to fix the problem, just as journalists in Washington do with our government every day. The more heat the media applies, the better the chances that problems will be fixed. That works in Washington and it would work with our sports leagues too. A week from now, the sports media will be on to some other story and the Super Bowl officiating will be forgotten until next season. Sadly, the media will have again missed the opportunity to not just be reporters of poor officiating, but to also be agents of change. Where are the Woodward and Bernstein of the sports media when we need them?

Got the Cliffs Notes version? Just from a skim it looks like you equated the importance of keeping sports honest with keeping government honest. Please tell me you haven't lost perspecitve on the relative importance of these two areas of society.

Don't read things into my comments that are not there, nor intended. I have not lost perspective about sports, nor have I "equated" the importance of sports vs. government performance. I am using the example of political media reporting as an example of how the sports media could help solve an important problem. If you don't like the government example, then consider a business example. Sports is big business. It seems nonsensical to me that such a large business, like the NFL, would allow their product to be stained by such poor employee performance. When a major airline, auto maker or fast food business, for example, has a quality problem, it is major news. The media plays an important role as a change agent in drawing attention to the enterprise and the problem. The media "heat" helps to speed resolution. There are journalists that focus on ongoing sports "issues", they just seem to focus on other issues, like steroids or stadium financing issues. Bringing continuous media heat to the officiating problem would serve as a change agent to fixing it.

Since you mentioned steroids. I believe the steroids in sports and elsewhere are more of a government issue, since the last time I checked they were considered controlled substances. Regardless of baseball rules, NFL rules, or any other pro or collegiate league rules mandating penalties for their abuse, I would ultimately feel better if the government actually charged someone other than the Balco chief for distribution, possession, administration of the said substances.

The main point that gets lost in this whole steroid noise is the simple fact that they are not only against the rules of a particular organized league but simply illegal.

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"It's not exactly a rocket surgery." D.J.