No Blood, No Foul?

Growing up playing pick up game after pick up game with my uncles, cousins, and their older friends, I learned very quickly that the games were not stopping for touch fouls. If I was going to the basket, I was getting laid out and I better try my best to finish b/c nothing was getting called on my behalf. Most of the time it was a No Blood, No Foul type of game and sometimes, especially the boys, came at me harder b/c I was a girl. 

The years that I played in school and rec leagues, I learned real quick that there is a difference between hard fouls and just completely dirty play!  The hard fouls got me the nick name Truck...what can I say I was physical in the paint! haha

I was not feeling well tonight and looking at Yahoo Sports, I came across this video. It is of a High School basketball game in Washington where the cameraman taping the game to show just how bad the Refs in the area are. With that, he caught five borderline extremely hard  / flagrant fouls.  Four of them and probably the hardest came from number 34, Cole Vanderbilt. While a few of these fouls could be called just playing the game hard, the fifth one committed by Cole is definitely one I would call a flagrant. As you watch these clips you can see what happens when the refs do not take control of the game and allow things to escalate! 

CHECK OUT THE VIDEO!!!!! 

Now with watching the video, I have to raise the question. Was this on the Coach or the kid playing hard and being allowed to keep going until he laid that player out at the end, because the refs didn't call the game properly? 


Playing and attending all kinds of HS games with my husband, I have seen games get out of control and seen top players being singled out and rocked under the basket. You can tell the teams that maybe have been instructed by the coach to go after the best player and the kids that play hard and are a little hot headed. As a player I fed off of that, as a spectator it makes me a nervous wreck! The last thing anyone wants to see is a kid get severely injured do to a douche bag coach or a kid that thinks he/she is a thug on the court. 


I believe we can all agree that this game was poorly called and the referees did not do their job and allowed the game to get out of hand.