Caught this re-run from CNBC on Sirius radio tonight on the way home from Harrisburg. Tim Donaghy is featured. There's a clip of some of what he had to say here:
http://www.thesportsbank.net/nba/tim-donaghy-resurfaces-in-cnbc-doc-truth-about-lies/
To summarize all that he said, basically when he entered the NBA as a rookie ref he tried to call things according to the book. He quickly came to understand that other officials were passing him on the ladder to plum games and playoff assignments. Older officials started to let Donaghy in on the way things ran. You don't call traveling or fouls on the stars, the big market teams, or the popular players in the sporting goods stores. The league never came out and said "Call the games this way" but league officials would send emails and memos indicating that certain things needed to be adhered to. So Donaghy has it figured out now, he knows tendencies of the other refs, which ref is whose "boy." Big advantage. Not going to get into the rest of it, most know the story.
This is the first time I recall hearing a pro official admit publicly that it's a railroad job. How naive not to think it happens in the major NCAA conferences. Of course most of us have known this for 20 years but now an ex-official has said as much. If it's on demand check it out. It'll probably be on again sometime. Interesting show. We also have to admit that on some level we signed up to get hosed by being in the conference at all. That's the unspoken truth, and why every time we take a shafting nothing's ever said by the AD.
http://www.thesportsbank.net/nba/tim-donaghy-resurfaces-in-cnbc-doc-truth-about-lies/
To summarize all that he said, basically when he entered the NBA as a rookie ref he tried to call things according to the book. He quickly came to understand that other officials were passing him on the ladder to plum games and playoff assignments. Older officials started to let Donaghy in on the way things ran. You don't call traveling or fouls on the stars, the big market teams, or the popular players in the sporting goods stores. The league never came out and said "Call the games this way" but league officials would send emails and memos indicating that certain things needed to be adhered to. So Donaghy has it figured out now, he knows tendencies of the other refs, which ref is whose "boy." Big advantage. Not going to get into the rest of it, most know the story.
This is the first time I recall hearing a pro official admit publicly that it's a railroad job. How naive not to think it happens in the major NCAA conferences. Of course most of us have known this for 20 years but now an ex-official has said as much. If it's on demand check it out. It'll probably be on again sometime. Interesting show. We also have to admit that on some level we signed up to get hosed by being in the conference at all. That's the unspoken truth, and why every time we take a shafting nothing's ever said by the AD.
