COMMENTARY
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Big 12 commissar Bob Bowlsby got his pound of flesh this week, charging West Virginia coach Bob Huggins $10,000 for referring to the officiating crew from last Saturday’s game at Kansas as “three blind mice” in a postgame interview on WVU’s radio network.
Who knew the signal stretched from Weirton to Welch to Martinsburg to Matewan to Irving, Texas?
In Bowlsby’s defense, some sort of action had to be taken. A league can’t just allow its coaches to be comparing referees to rodents.
And in the defense of said officials, Huggins’ off-the-cuff remark was inaccurate.
Having been at Allen Fieldhouse in person, I can verify that only one of them might have been legally blind. Another appeared as though he had only an occasional bout of glaucoma at worst. And the third guy actually seemed to call a very good game.
Speaking of being able to see things, it would be nice if the Big 12 actually provided some transparency when it reaches into a coach’s wallet to pull out a Salmon P. Chase.
In the league’s official statement, Bowlsby noted “because this is Coach Huggins’ third such incident, a public reprimand and a fine of $10,000 is appropriate.”
There’s little question Huggins has publicly criticized Big 12 officiating on some other occasion in his career, and doing so is a specific violation of Big 12 bylaw 12.3.2.
But when the heck did he do it? Is there a statute of limitations? Did he realize he was stepping into the box facing an 0-2 count?
The public deserves to know such specifics rather than reading a generic one-paragraph statement.
This is not just a Big 12 issue. Perhaps the most frustrating aspect at every level of sport is the lack of transparency when it comes to all matters officiating.
There are a few exceptions.
The NBA has its two-minute report, which reviews calls that were blown in the final two minutes of each game — though it was notably created after Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban racked up six-figure fines bemoaning the league’s lack of officiating transparency.
There was also the instance where MLB umpire Jim Joyce apologized for blowing a call that cost Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga a perfect game. It resonated in part because an umpire who admitted to messing up was more rare than a perfect game itself.
But outside of that, the public has little or no way of seeing how officials are held accountable.
Bad coaches are fired. Bad players are benched, cut or sent down to the minors. Bad officials? Who the heck knows.
And if you acknowledge the possibility that bad officials even exist, it’ll cost you. (All of this, by the way, is also a disservice to those officials who are at the top of their game — there should be a transparent way to highlight their work, too).
Which brings us back to the fine.
If Huggs has to be penalized for stepping out of line, why not make the best of the situation and permit him to donate to the Norma Mae Huggins Foundation? No one really loses in that scenario.
Instead, we don’t know where the money will go because of — you guessed it — the Big 12’s lack of transparency. The Big 12’s 64-page rulebook and bylaws give the commissioner the ability to levy fines for matters like storming the court or criticizing officials, but bear no mention of how that money is allocated once collected.
Given the lack of clarity, the onus is instead on fans to make sure fine money goes towards a good cause.
When the league fined Texas Tech AD Kirby Hocutt $25,000 last fall after he made a factual statement about a call the league admitted was wrong in the Red Raiders’ 33-30 overtime loss to Baylor, Texas Tech fans took to social media to pass the virtual hat around.
Those fans ended up raising $60,000 to go towards a scholarship fund in Hocutt’s name.
Several enterprising West Virginia fans are doing a similar thing this week.
A search on GoFundMe shows there are currently five different groups attempting to raise $10,000 to donate to the Norma Mae Huggins Foundation. If all five hit that mark, that’s $50,000 for cancer research — and that would actually be worth the price of uttering “three blind mice.”