Comments on: Semifinal Sunday: NFA wrecks Staples’ mojo, Fairfield County silenced

By: GHS1973

GHS1973 — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 01:51:41 +0000

@Hasbeen…BTW…When I was at GHS we had Coach Osvick who was a tyrant, and a lousy coach..When we got Oranato from Port Chester in ’73 he changed the whole football culture & program around, and shaped it into what it is today…Competetive just about every year…Coach Al followed him (also from Port Chester), and has continued the legacy at GHS, but some of his game plans & play calling decisions on the field make you scratch your head…

By: Hasbeen

Hasbeen — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 01:25:43 +0000

@GHS1973…Of course Ornato is too old now but if he had the talented teams that Al has been lucky enough to have had I would guarantee there would be many more trophies in Greenwich’s case! Oh well… Hope for a little more luck next year!

By: Dave Lib

Dave Lib — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 01:18:37 +0000

@GHS Fan

I’m all for a good conspiracy theory, but you’ve got to stop it with the “refs are cheating” rants.
The refs DO NOT CARE who wins and loses a high school football game. Some bad calls? Yes. But nothing intentional.
As far as keeping a stat sheet on individual refs and the penalties they throw? Not going to happen, unless you do the research and post it for all of us to see. Even then, very few people will care.
And that’s all the time/energy I’ll have for this topic. It’s getting tiresome and ridiculous.
P.S…..I’m glad you are not my boss! The accountability!!

By: GHS1973

GHS1973 — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 01:07:12 +0000

@hasbeen…Gotta agree with you about Coach Al…When he has an unstoppable team, he’s good despite play calling mistakes…Great guy, but no Coach Oranato…

By: Hasbeen

Hasbeen — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 23:21:35 +0000

Cthsfootball, The player threw the water because someone in the stands spat on him.

Also, SJ Alum If you were paying attention you would have seen a very chippy game that kept getting worse as the game went on. The refs didnt control the game properly allowing some late hits.
In the end the players respected each other. I think they were shocked that they did what they did. One good thing is that everyone there didn’t really make much more out of it than necessary. There was a little more yelling but it did calm down fast. No one got hurt they all had equipment on. Something they could reminesce about in twenty years.

Once again, the Xavier team is very very good. Good luck to them and I can’t wait to see that QB play at BC. He has a lot of poise and a strong arm. I feel sorry for the Greenwich kids because their coach can’t manage a big game anymore.

By: GHS Fan

GHS Fan — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 13:13:12 +0000

Garf – Thank you for validating my suspicions. I re-watched the game with honus’ excellent notes. The refs at the Staples-NFA game should give whatever money they were paid back to the taxpayers, and the crew should be prohibited from reffing anything more important than a third grade dodge ball game.
I have to agree that there is somewhat of a random pattern of one-sided calls. My observation that the refs make bad calls (or bad non-calls) against “rich kids” is not very supportable even in my mind. That is, in a New Canaan vs Greenwich game, how would they decide to call the game? They would need Bloomberg machines and would have to check the status periodically in this age of 24 hour trading. So, that is clearly not the only criteria for referee favoritism.
However, I do think that is a factor. Other factors seem to be if one team comes from a perenially good program and one team is an “upstart”, the year-in year-out excellent team will get screwed. If one team is private school and the other team is a public school, the private school will get the shaft.
So, Ansonia, coming from a winning tradition, will likely get screwed by the refs. Xavier is going to get screwed because of their winning tradition and they are a private school playing an upstart public school.
Sadly, rather than predicting winners and losers, this moribund reffing situation has relegated me to predicting which school is going to take a ref screwing this weekend. However, since I have no dog in this hunt, I really think I can objectively observe if the bad-call (or non-call) suspicions we hold are correct.
Performance metrics for referees! What an outrageous concept!

By: Cthsfootball

Cthsfootball — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 05:34:41 +0000

To all this talk about the GHS X brawl. I know their has been a lot said about Xavier’s parents screaming at the Greenwich players after the late hit and brawl took place. I was sitting right next to that section. Xavier’s parents/fans were yelling about the late hit on Boyle and sayin, “how could you do that?” and things like that. Then a Greenwich player/member of the team/someone on the sidelines sprayed a water bottle or threw a cup of water up into the stands where the Xavier’s parents/fans were. That’s when things really heated up and I think is when people thought the Xavier fans were being “classless” as I heard. Not that a high schooler overreacting by spraying water makes it right to scream back but man if I was hit by water on that cold of a night…..I wouldn’t be happy either.

By: Garf

Garf — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 04:53:58 +0000

#30 GHS fan…I have always had a passion for high school sports and I too have sensed for quite some time that there is more than the element of human error involved with the officiating (and governing body of CT sports). I just posted this yesterday on NVL blog:

Lastly, the refs will play an unknown role – can call me a conspiracy theorist but i’ll call you naive, been loving high school playoffs for many years and in almost every single game I’ve watched the refs subtly or not-so-subtly influence the game in one team’s favor – why? I have theories but not sure really as the teams and conferences hurt by it seem random…just watch for momentum-killing calls especially early when the game’s tone is being set and later at critical points, i.e., when holds and chop blocks are called deep in the red zone – where they’re normally not called. Ansonia has been benefitting somewhat from refs of late but my gut and experience say that reverses itself this weekend, we’ll see.

By: Brian's Song

Brian's Song — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 03:29:45 +0000

Thanks Brian. We’ll all be able to sleep better now. Sleep tight.

By: SJ Alum

SJ Alum — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 02:44:29 +0000

@ Hasbeen, I’m a Xavier fan and was at the game, along with numerous other people on this blog and several sports writers. It was apparent that Greenwich was becoming increasingly frustrated as they watched their season slowly slipping away. The “Taunting” you described was in reference to the lack of sportsmanship by Cardinal players going after Tim Boyle (now known as The Brawl) after he scored a touchdown. I realize that emotions run high in playoff games but to try to cheap shot and possibly injure a player (D1 commit)is my definition of classless. As for the GHS coaching staff, they had a very successful credible year, one to build on…and to their credit (and Xavier’s) when they regrouped and each side talked to the players sportsmanship returned to the game. If you were paying attention opposing players were helping each other up off the field. When all was said and done and each team’s fans were heading to the parking lot there were many congratulatory statements by each side. So to me it DOES sound like sour grapes. Good Luck to all the players, coaches and Fans in the finals and to those who left it all on the field.