Ref pulled at halftime due to conflict

[RickRund]

https://www.espn.com/womens-college-bas ... d-conflict

[catatac]

Sounds pretty stupid... as in - shouldn't any background checks\conflicts be figured out before the game actually starts? Who is still researching things that late in the game? I'll just assume it's the NCAA doing NCAA things.

[Cataholic]

Maybe MHSA can consider applying similar rules for their high school refs…. Grady Bennett is the Glacier football coach and somehow gets to ref Glacier basketball games. If he really wanted to ref, there is another AA basketball team in Kalispell that I am sure he could assignments for. Half the Glacier basketball team played for him on the football team.

[MSU01]

Sounds pretty stupid... as in - shouldn't any background checks\conflicts be figured out before the game actually starts? Who is still researching things that late in the game? I'll just assume it's the NCAA doing NCAA things.

That was my question, how in the world did nobody notice there was a problem until the game had already started? The NCAA got VERY lucky that the ref in question was affiliated with the losing team and not the winning one.

[catatac]

Maybe MHSA can consider applying similar rules for their high school refs…. Grady Bennett is the Glacier football coach and somehow gets to ref Glacier basketball games. If he really wanted to ref, there is another AA basketball team in Kalispell that I am sure he could assignments for. Half the Glacier basketball team played for him on the football team.

I'm guessing Grady does a pretty good job of fair officiating... but I could be wrong? Does anyone know if any coaches or parents have ever complained that he calls the games with bias?

[Cataholic]

Maybe MHSA can consider applying similar rules for their high school refs…. Grady Bennett is the Glacier football coach and somehow gets to ref Glacier basketball games. If he really wanted to ref, there is another AA basketball team in Kalispell that I am sure he could assignments for. Half the Glacier basketball team played for him on the football team.

I'm guessing Grady does a pretty good job of fair officiating... but I could be wrong? Does anyone know if any coaches or parents have ever complained that he calls the games with bias?

Are you kidding me? Do you know of any ref that doesn’t have complaints against them?

But regardless of complaints or not, just from a “bad look” perspective, he shouldn’t be allowed to ref Glacier games. It definitely doesn’t look good, especially when there are other AA varsity games to take in the same city. I know of a number of officials that won’t ref games where there is any potential conflict. If NCAA doesn’t allow an alumnus to ref a game, why should MHSA not have similar standards?

[tdub]

Maybe MHSA can consider applying similar rules for their high school refs…. Grady Bennett is the Glacier football coach and somehow gets to ref Glacier basketball games. If he really wanted to ref, there is another AA basketball team in Kalispell that I am sure he could assignments for. Half the Glacier basketball team played for him on the football team.

I'm guessing Grady does a pretty good job of fair officiating... but I could be wrong? Does anyone know if any coaches or parents have ever complained that he calls the games with bias?

Are you kidding me? Do you know of any ref that doesn’t have complaints against them?

But regardless of complaints or not, just from a “bad look” perspective, he shouldn’t be allowed to ref Glacier games. It definitely doesn’t look good, especially when there are other AA varsity games to take in the same city. I know of a number of officials that won’t ref games where there is any potential conflict. If NCAA doesn’t allow an alumnus to ref a game, why should MHSA not have similar standards?

Not exactly a deep pool of officials anywhere. You take what you can get. If he’s doing a good job, then so be it.
On the positive side, as a parent I’d have a lot harder time yelling at an official that was my son’s football coach!

[Cataholic]

Maybe MHSA can consider applying similar rules for their high school refs…. Grady Bennett is the Glacier football coach and somehow gets to ref Glacier basketball games. If he really wanted to ref, there is another AA basketball team in Kalispell that I am sure he could assignments for. Half the Glacier basketball team played for him on the football team.

I'm guessing Grady does a pretty good job of fair officiating... but I could be wrong? Does anyone know if any coaches or parents have ever complained that he calls the games with bias?

Are you kidding me? Do you know of any ref that doesn’t have complaints against them?

But regardless of complaints or not, just from a “bad look” perspective, he shouldn’t be allowed to ref Glacier games. It definitely doesn’t look good, especially when there are other AA varsity games to take in the same city. I know of a number of officials that won’t ref games where there is any potential conflict. If NCAA doesn’t allow an alumnus to ref a game, why should MHSA not have similar standards?

Not exactly a deep pool of officials anywhere. You take what you can get. If he’s doing a good job, then so be it.
On the positive side, as a parent I’d have a lot harder time yelling at an official that was my son’s football coach!

No question we need more officials. But don’t forget that there are two high schools in Kalispell. Grady could easily be place on only Flathead games.

Here is hypothetical for your consideration. If Bobby Hauck was basketball ref for men’s Cat-Gris basketball, would you be okay with that? Wouldn’t Cat fans go crazy over potential bias?

[tdub]

Maybe MHSA can consider applying similar rules for their high school refs…. Grady Bennett is the Glacier football coach and somehow gets to ref Glacier basketball games. If he really wanted to ref, there is another AA basketball team in Kalispell that I am sure he could assignments for. Half the Glacier basketball team played for him on the football team.

I'm guessing Grady does a pretty good job of fair officiating... but I could be wrong? Does anyone know if any coaches or parents have ever complained that he calls the games with bias?

Are you kidding me? Do you know of any ref that doesn’t have complaints against them?

But regardless of complaints or not, just from a “bad look” perspective, he shouldn’t be allowed to ref Glacier games. It definitely doesn’t look good, especially when there are other AA varsity games to take in the same city. I know of a number of officials that won’t ref games where there is any potential conflict. If NCAA doesn’t allow an alumnus to ref a game, why should MHSA not have similar standards?

Not exactly a deep pool of officials anywhere. You take what you can get. If he’s doing a good job, then so be it.
On the positive side, as a parent I’d have a lot harder time yelling at an official that was my son’s football coach!

No question we need more officials. But don’t forget that there are two high schools in Kalispell. Grady could easily be place on only Flathead games.

Here is hypothetical for your consideration. If Bobby Hauck was basketball ref for men’s Cat-Gris basketball, would you be okay with that? Wouldn’t Cat fans go crazy over potential bias?

Bitter college rivals =\= regular season high school. The higher the level of competition the more it matters as people’s careers are on the line. Post-season high school, maybe not have him on Glacier games. Regular season is meh.

I also coached at Glacier and at the time I only saw Grady reffing girls games, mostly sub-varsity. Maybe the dude loves to ref and is good at it? He had a long career at Flathead too. At the end of the day he’s a school district 5 employee, and bias shown like that would be seen and likely be ended quickly.

And how often are Glacier and Flathead playing on the same night at home and does he ref Flathead games too? So just “switching” isn’t really even an option. He’s in the MOA pool in the area so I’m sure he works where scheduled.

[Cataholic]

Maybe MHSA can consider applying similar rules for their high school refs…. Grady Bennett is the Glacier football coach and somehow gets to ref Glacier basketball games. If he really wanted to ref, there is another AA basketball team in Kalispell that I am sure he could assignments for. Half the Glacier basketball team played for him on the football team.

I'm guessing Grady does a pretty good job of fair officiating... but I could be wrong? Does anyone know if any coaches or parents have ever complained that he calls the games with bias?

Are you kidding me? Do you know of any ref that doesn’t have complaints against them?

But regardless of complaints or not, just from a “bad look” perspective, he shouldn’t be allowed to ref Glacier games. It definitely doesn’t look good, especially when there are other AA varsity games to take in the same city. I know of a number of officials that won’t ref games where there is any potential conflict. If NCAA doesn’t allow an alumnus to ref a game, why should MHSA not have similar standards?

Not exactly a deep pool of officials anywhere. You take what you can get. If he’s doing a good job, then so be it.
On the positive side, as a parent I’d have a lot harder time yelling at an official that was my son’s football coach!

No question we need more officials. But don’t forget that there are two high schools in Kalispell. Grady could easily be place on only Flathead games.

Here is hypothetical for your consideration. If Bobby Hauck was basketball ref for men’s Cat-Gris basketball, would you be okay with that? Wouldn’t Cat fans go crazy over potential bias?

Bitter college rivals =\= regular season high school. The higher the level of competition the more it matters as people’s careers are on the line. Post-season high school, maybe not have him on Glacier games. Regular season is meh.

I also coached at Glacier and at the time I only saw Grady reffing girls games, mostly sub-varsity. Maybe the dude loves to ref and is good at it? He had a long career at Flathead too. At the end of the day he’s a school district 5 employee, and bias shown like that would be seen and likely be ended quickly.

And how often are Glacier and Flathead playing on the same night at home and does he ref Flathead games too? So just “switching” isn’t really even an option. He’s in the MOA pool in the area so I’m sure he works where scheduled.

I can tell you that high school athletics mean an awful lot to a lot of people. In many cases, some people are more vested in high school games than college games as they have family or friends playing. Saying that high school games just aren’t as important so the “bad look” isn’t that big of a deal is a total cop out.

Grady is doing boys games. I have heard others say that he gives his players the benefit of the doubt. As a former coach, you know how vested we become in the success of the kids. It might not even be intentional, but I love to see my former players be successful. When I saw Grady doing a Glqcier game, before he even blew a whistle, I immediately thought that it was a conflict. The original post of this thread is about the NCAA not allowing a ref to do a game that she received her masters degree from. It is human nature and I think the MHSA and MOA group should have a similar standard to the NCAA.

Lastly, the MOA pool covers a large group of schools. It is not just Flathead and Glacier. If Grady loves reffing, there are a huge number of games to be covered in the area. Columbia Falls, Bigfork, Whitefish all have games to be covered. To have a current Varsity boys coach at a school reffing his players in another Varsity competition is just too much of a conflict for me. Isn’t the goal to have qualified impartial refs for every game?

[kennethnoisewater]

Maybe MHSA can consider applying similar rules for their high school refs…. Grady Bennett is the Glacier football coach and somehow gets to ref Glacier basketball games. If he really wanted to ref, there is another AA basketball team in Kalispell that I am sure he could assignments for. Half the Glacier basketball team played for him on the football team.

I'm guessing Grady does a pretty good job of fair officiating... but I could be wrong? Does anyone know if any coaches or parents have ever complained that he calls the games with bias?

Are you kidding me? Do you know of any ref that doesn’t have complaints against them?

But regardless of complaints or not, just from a “bad look” perspective, he shouldn’t be allowed to ref Glacier games. It definitely doesn’t look good, especially when there are other AA varsity games to take in the same city. I know of a number of officials that won’t ref games where there is any potential conflict. If NCAA doesn’t allow an alumnus to ref a game, why should MHSA not have similar standards?

Not exactly a deep pool of officials anywhere. You take what you can get. If he’s doing a good job, then so be it.
On the positive side, as a parent I’d have a lot harder time yelling at an official that was my son’s football coach!

No question we need more officials. But don’t forget that there are two high schools in Kalispell. Grady could easily be place on only Flathead games.

Here is hypothetical for your consideration. If Bobby Hauck was basketball ref for men’s Cat-Gris basketball, would you be okay with that? Wouldn’t Cat fans go crazy over potential bias?

Bitter college rivals =\= regular season high school. The higher the level of competition the more it matters as people’s careers are on the line. Post-season high school, maybe not have him on Glacier games. Regular season is meh.

I also coached at Glacier and at the time I only saw Grady reffing girls games, mostly sub-varsity. Maybe the dude loves to ref and is good at it? He had a long career at Flathead too. At the end of the day he’s a school district 5 employee, and bias shown like that would be seen and likely be ended quickly.

And how often are Glacier and Flathead playing on the same night at home and does he ref Flathead games too? So just “switching” isn’t really even an option. He’s in the MOA pool in the area so I’m sure he works where scheduled.

I can tell you that high school athletics mean an awful lot to a lot of people. In many cases, some people are more vested in high school games than college games as they have family or friends playing. Saying that high school games just aren’t as important so the “bad look” isn’t that big of a deal is a total cop out.

Grady is doing boys games. I have heard others say that he gives his players the benefit of the doubt. As a former coach, you know how vested we become in the success of the kids. It might not even be intentional, but I love to see my former players be successful. When I saw Grady doing a Glqcier game, before he even blew a whistle, I immediately thought that it was a conflict. The original post of this thread is about the NCAA not allowing a ref to do a game that she received her masters degree from. It is human nature and I think the MHSA and MOA group should have a similar standard to the NCAA.

Lastly, the MOA pool covers a large group of schools. It is not just Flathead and Glacier. If Grady loves reffing, there are a huge number of games to be covered in the area. Columbia Falls, Bigfork, Whitefish all have games to be covered. To have a current Varsity boys coach at a school reffing his players in another Varsity competition is just too much of a conflict for me. Isn’t the goal to have qualified impartial refs for every game?

Grady refs games all over the Flathead. I actually haven't seen him ref a Glacier boys' varsity game, but I could have obviously missed that. He was voted to ref State AA Boys but declined the invitation because he knew it wouldn't look good. That tells me he's pretty conscientious about that conflict, but it also tells me that AA basketball coaches like him as an official. I am not a fan of Grady as a coach and of Glacier as an athletic department, but I think Grady is a good guy and I think he's one of the best refs in the Flathead.

Now, Glenn Welch out of Missoula should definitely never be able to ref any Loyola games, and maybe he's finally retired, I'm not sure.

[Cataholic]

Maybe MHSA can consider applying similar rules for their high school refs…. Grady Bennett is the Glacier football coach and somehow gets to ref Glacier basketball games. If he really wanted to ref, there is another AA basketball team in Kalispell that I am sure he could assignments for. Half the Glacier basketball team played for him on the football team.

I'm guessing Grady does a pretty good job of fair officiating... but I could be wrong? Does anyone know if any coaches or parents have ever complained that he calls the games with bias?

Are you kidding me? Do you know of any ref that doesn’t have complaints against them?

But regardless of complaints or not, just from a “bad look” perspective, he shouldn’t be allowed to ref Glacier games. It definitely doesn’t look good, especially when there are other AA varsity games to take in the same city. I know of a number of officials that won’t ref games where there is any potential conflict. If NCAA doesn’t allow an alumnus to ref a game, why should MHSA not have similar standards?

Not exactly a deep pool of officials anywhere. You take what you can get. If he’s doing a good job, then so be it.
On the positive side, as a parent I’d have a lot harder time yelling at an official that was my son’s football coach!

No question we need more officials. But don’t forget that there are two high schools in Kalispell. Grady could easily be place on only Flathead games.

Here is hypothetical for your consideration. If Bobby Hauck was basketball ref for men’s Cat-Gris basketball, would you be okay with that? Wouldn’t Cat fans go crazy over potential bias?

Bitter college rivals =\= regular season high school. The higher the level of competition the more it matters as people’s careers are on the line. Post-season high school, maybe not have him on Glacier games. Regular season is meh.

I also coached at Glacier and at the time I only saw Grady reffing girls games, mostly sub-varsity. Maybe the dude loves to ref and is good at it? He had a long career at Flathead too. At the end of the day he’s a school district 5 employee, and bias shown like that would be seen and likely be ended quickly.

And how often are Glacier and Flathead playing on the same night at home and does he ref Flathead games too? So just “switching” isn’t really even an option. He’s in the MOA pool in the area so I’m sure he works where scheduled.

I can tell you that high school athletics mean an awful lot to a lot of people. In many cases, some people are more vested in high school games than college games as they have family or friends playing. Saying that high school games just aren’t as important so the “bad look” isn’t that big of a deal is a total cop out.

Grady is doing boys games. I have heard others say that he gives his players the benefit of the doubt. As a former coach, you know how vested we become in the success of the kids. It might not even be intentional, but I love to see my former players be successful. When I saw Grady doing a Glqcier game, before he even blew a whistle, I immediately thought that it was a conflict. The original post of this thread is about the NCAA not allowing a ref to do a game that she received her masters degree from. It is human nature and I think the MHSA and MOA group should have a similar standard to the NCAA.

Lastly, the MOA pool covers a large group of schools. It is not just Flathead and Glacier. If Grady loves reffing, there are a huge number of games to be covered in the area. Columbia Falls, Bigfork, Whitefish all have games to be covered. To have a current Varsity boys coach at a school reffing his players in another Varsity competition is just too much of a conflict for me. Isn’t the goal to have qualified impartial refs for every game?

Grady refs games all over the Flathead. I actually haven't seen him ref a Glacier boys' varsity game, but I could have obviously missed that. He was voted to ref State AA Boys but declined the invitation because he knew it wouldn't look good. That tells me he's pretty conscientious about that conflict, but it also tells me that AA basketball coaches like him as an official. I am not a fan of Grady as a coach and of Glacier as an athletic department, but I think Grady is a good guy and I think he's one of the best refs in the Flathead.

Now, Glenn Welch out of Missoula should definitely never be able to ref any Loyola games, and maybe he's finally retired, I'm not sure.

So he felt there might be a conflict at the State tourney, but not for Glacier home games? And I did see him do Glacier home boys games this year. Like I said earlier, not a good look.

[kennethnoisewater]

Maybe MHSA can consider applying similar rules for their high school refs…. Grady Bennett is the Glacier football coach and somehow gets to ref Glacier basketball games. If he really wanted to ref, there is another AA basketball team in Kalispell that I am sure he could assignments for. Half the Glacier basketball team played for him on the football team.

I'm guessing Grady does a pretty good job of fair officiating... but I could be wrong? Does anyone know if any coaches or parents have ever complained that he calls the games with bias?

Are you kidding me? Do you know of any ref that doesn’t have complaints against them?

But regardless of complaints or not, just from a “bad look” perspective, he shouldn’t be allowed to ref Glacier games. It definitely doesn’t look good, especially when there are other AA varsity games to take in the same city. I know of a number of officials that won’t ref games where there is any potential conflict. If NCAA doesn’t allow an alumnus to ref a game, why should MHSA not have similar standards?

Not exactly a deep pool of officials anywhere. You take what you can get. If he’s doing a good job, then so be it.
On the positive side, as a parent I’d have a lot harder time yelling at an official that was my son’s football coach!

No question we need more officials. But don’t forget that there are two high schools in Kalispell. Grady could easily be place on only Flathead games.

Here is hypothetical for your consideration. If Bobby Hauck was basketball ref for men’s Cat-Gris basketball, would you be okay with that? Wouldn’t Cat fans go crazy over potential bias?

Bitter college rivals =\= regular season high school. The higher the level of competition the more it matters as people’s careers are on the line. Post-season high school, maybe not have him on Glacier games. Regular season is meh.

I also coached at Glacier and at the time I only saw Grady reffing girls games, mostly sub-varsity. Maybe the dude loves to ref and is good at it? He had a long career at Flathead too. At the end of the day he’s a school district 5 employee, and bias shown like that would be seen and likely be ended quickly.

And how often are Glacier and Flathead playing on the same night at home and does he ref Flathead games too? So just “switching” isn’t really even an option. He’s in the MOA pool in the area so I’m sure he works where scheduled.

I can tell you that high school athletics mean an awful lot to a lot of people. In many cases, some people are more vested in high school games than college games as they have family or friends playing. Saying that high school games just aren’t as important so the “bad look” isn’t that big of a deal is a total cop out.

Grady is doing boys games. I have heard others say that he gives his players the benefit of the doubt. As a former coach, you know how vested we become in the success of the kids. It might not even be intentional, but I love to see my former players be successful. When I saw Grady doing a Glqcier game, before he even blew a whistle, I immediately thought that it was a conflict. The original post of this thread is about the NCAA not allowing a ref to do a game that she received her masters degree from. It is human nature and I think the MHSA and MOA group should have a similar standard to the NCAA.

Lastly, the MOA pool covers a large group of schools. It is not just Flathead and Glacier. If Grady loves reffing, there are a huge number of games to be covered in the area. Columbia Falls, Bigfork, Whitefish all have games to be covered. To have a current Varsity boys coach at a school reffing his players in another Varsity competition is just too much of a conflict for me. Isn’t the goal to have qualified impartial refs for every game?

Grady refs games all over the Flathead. I actually haven't seen him ref a Glacier boys' varsity game, but I could have obviously missed that. He was voted to ref State AA Boys but declined the invitation because he knew it wouldn't look good. That tells me he's pretty conscientious about that conflict, but it also tells me that AA basketball coaches like him as an official. I am not a fan of Grady as a coach and of Glacier as an athletic department, but I think Grady is a good guy and I think he's one of the best refs in the Flathead.

Now, Glenn Welch out of Missoula should definitely never be able to ref any Loyola games, and maybe he's finally retired, I'm not sure.

So he felt there might be a conflict at the State tourney, but not for Glacier home games? And I did see him do Glacier home boys games this year. Like I said earlier, not a good look.

Well yeah, I'm not sure why that's hard to believe. I'm sure he took a lot of heat for doing a Glacier home game, but doing a state tournament game would be far worse, would it not? I agree it's not a good look, but sometimes they can't make it work any other way. When it really matters at a state tournament, he did the right thing. And he doesn't pick his games in the regular season. A scheduler assigns him. I'm sure he could pitch a fit and opt out, and maybe he should. But I've watched him ref a crosstown girls' game, and he seems to go out of his way to not favor Glacier.

[Cataholic]

Maybe MHSA can consider applying similar rules for their high school refs…. Grady Bennett is the Glacier football coach and somehow gets to ref Glacier basketball games. If he really wanted to ref, there is another AA basketball team in Kalispell that I am sure he could assignments for. Half the Glacier basketball team played for him on the football team.

I'm guessing Grady does a pretty good job of fair officiating... but I could be wrong? Does anyone know if any coaches or parents have ever complained that he calls the games with bias?

Are you kidding me? Do you know of any ref that doesn’t have complaints against them?

But regardless of complaints or not, just from a “bad look” perspective, he shouldn’t be allowed to ref Glacier games. It definitely doesn’t look good, especially when there are other AA varsity games to take in the same city. I know of a number of officials that won’t ref games where there is any potential conflict. If NCAA doesn’t allow an alumnus to ref a game, why should MHSA not have similar standards?

Not exactly a deep pool of officials anywhere. You take what you can get. If he’s doing a good job, then so be it.
On the positive side, as a parent I’d have a lot harder time yelling at an official that was my son’s football coach!

No question we need more officials. But don’t forget that there are two high schools in Kalispell. Grady could easily be place on only Flathead games.

Here is hypothetical for your consideration. If Bobby Hauck was basketball ref for men’s Cat-Gris basketball, would you be okay with that? Wouldn’t Cat fans go crazy over potential bias?

Bitter college rivals =\= regular season high school. The higher the level of competition the more it matters as people’s careers are on the line. Post-season high school, maybe not have him on Glacier games. Regular season is meh.

I also coached at Glacier and at the time I only saw Grady reffing girls games, mostly sub-varsity. Maybe the dude loves to ref and is good at it? He had a long career at Flathead too. At the end of the day he’s a school district 5 employee, and bias shown like that would be seen and likely be ended quickly.

And how often are Glacier and Flathead playing on the same night at home and does he ref Flathead games too? So just “switching” isn’t really even an option. He’s in the MOA pool in the area so I’m sure he works where scheduled.

I can tell you that high school athletics mean an awful lot to a lot of people. In many cases, some people are more vested in high school games than college games as they have family or friends playing. Saying that high school games just aren’t as important so the “bad look” isn’t that big of a deal is a total cop out.

Grady is doing boys games. I have heard others say that he gives his players the benefit of the doubt. As a former coach, you know how vested we become in the success of the kids. It might not even be intentional, but I love to see my former players be successful. When I saw Grady doing a Glqcier game, before he even blew a whistle, I immediately thought that it was a conflict. The original post of this thread is about the NCAA not allowing a ref to do a game that she received her masters degree from. It is human nature and I think the MHSA and MOA group should have a similar standard to the NCAA.

Lastly, the MOA pool covers a large group of schools. It is not just Flathead and Glacier. If Grady loves reffing, there are a huge number of games to be covered in the area. Columbia Falls, Bigfork, Whitefish all have games to be covered. To have a current Varsity boys coach at a school reffing his players in another Varsity competition is just too much of a conflict for me. Isn’t the goal to have qualified impartial refs for every game?

Grady refs games all over the Flathead. I actually haven't seen him ref a Glacier boys' varsity game, but I could have obviously missed that. He was voted to ref State AA Boys but declined the invitation because he knew it wouldn't look good. That tells me he's pretty conscientious about that conflict, but it also tells me that AA basketball coaches like him as an official. I am not a fan of Grady as a coach and of Glacier as an athletic department, but I think Grady is a good guy and I think he's one of the best refs in the Flathead.

Now, Glenn Welch out of Missoula should definitely never be able to ref any Loyola games, and maybe he's finally retired, I'm not sure.

So he felt there might be a conflict at the State tourney, but not for Glacier home games? And I did see him do Glacier home boys games this year. Like I said earlier, not a good look.

Well yeah, I'm not sure why that's hard to believe. I'm sure he took a lot of heat for doing a Glacier home game, but doing a state tournament game would be far worse, would it not? I agree it's not a good look, but sometimes they can't make it work any other way. When it really matters at a state tournament, he did the right thing. And he doesn't pick his games in the regular season. A scheduler assigns him. I'm sure he could pitch a fit and opt out, and maybe he should. But I've watched him ref a crosstown girls' game, and he seems to go out of his way to not favor Glacier.

Girls game would be different. He is not reffing football players that he just coached. It is really not that difficult to see an obvious conflict. Anytime his star QB get the benefit of a questionable call/no-call, Grady would be scrutinized. I saw him do a game and I couldn’t help ask the question. It is human nature. Would the NCAA allow a similar situation? Why should the MHSA allow a lower standard?

As for state, Grady could take the assignment and still not get a Glacier game. The refs don’t do every single game and to have him sit for a Glacier game would have been easy.

And why are you giving him a pass for Glacier regular season games? He acknowledges a conflict could exist at state, but it is different for home Glacier games? That is ridiculous.

You make the assignment/ scheduler sound like they are pulling names out of a hat. They give lots of consideration to refs and coaches and potential issues. Some refs will never get a specific high school game because of perceived personal bias. There is absolutely no reason for Grady to do Glacier boys home games.

[PapaG]

If only this had been applied to my HS basketball game at Butte while playing for West.

[kennethnoisewater]

Girls game would be different. He is not reffing football players that he just coached. It is really not that difficult to see an obvious conflict. Anytime his star QB get the benefit of a questionable call/no-call, Grady would be scrutinized. I saw him do a game and I couldn’t help ask the question. It is human nature. Would the NCAA allow a similar situation? Why should the MHSA allow a lower standard?

As for state, Grady could take the assignment and still not get a Glacier game. The refs don’t do every single game and to have him sit for a Glacier game would have been easy.

And why are you giving him a pass for Glacier regular season games? He acknowledges a conflict could exist at state, but it is different for home Glacier games? That is ridiculous.

You make the assignment/ scheduler sound like they are pulling names out of a hat. They give lots of consideration to refs and coaches and potential issues. Some refs will never get a specific high school game because of perceived personal bias. There is absolutely no reason for Grady to do Glacier boys home games.

I know a girls game is different, but you better believe when he's out there in warmups, Flathead fans are rolling their eyes and assuming he's going to favor the Glacier girls (having been the girls' coach there in the past, and being a teacher there currently). I'm amazed how professional he is. Yeah, there's a potential conflict there, but Montana is full of small towns and you could find a potential conflict with anybody. And fans are idiots who will blame a ref for really dumb stuff because they need somebody to blame. I put zero stock in the statement that you've heard from people that he favors his players. Literally zero. Coaches voted him to be at state boys--that tells me everything I need to know. They would be the ones who see an actual conflict and they don't.

I'm not giving him a pass for regular season games. I'm acknowledging it's a bad look and saying that a conflict would be worse at state where games clearly mean more. And at state, they can't schedule around a conflict like that. There aren't enough officials there, and most of those assignments (if not all of them) are planned before the tournament starts. There would be no way of knowing in advance what games Glacier might be playing in.

In the regular season, the scheduler in the Flathead is not pulling names out of a hat, and I didn't make it sound that way. But you have maybe a half dozen good officials in that valley. There are another half dozen that are OK, and another dozen that you can maybe hide out there on the court somewhere for a varsity game. The scheduler has a hard job, finding qualified officials to do Varsity games in Eureka, Libby, Bigfork, C-Falls, Whitefish, Flathead, Glacier, and even out to Plains and Thompson Falls. I'd bet you a beer Grady has requested not to be put on Glacier games, but scheduling is hard with so few officials. He's always trying to work around those requests--trust me I know because I've met with him after complaints about a ref in Bigfork who's from Bigfork (originally) and shouldn't be working there, according to a coach from Thompson Falls. But Ref A works late and can't do a 6:00 varsity game. Ref B's kid is playing at West Valley and can't do a game until 7:30. Grady has after school meetings and can't make it out to Libby, so the only way they can use him is to put him in Kalispell.

I've heard it in this state about 100 different officials. His kid went to that school. He plays golf with that coach. He got in a fight with that coach 20 years ago outside a bar. Some of them are legitimate, most are not. I trust the coaches to tell us who's fair and who's not. If Grady wasn't fair, what coach in Boys' AA basketball, outside of Mark Harkins at Glacier, would vote for him to be at state?

[Cataholic]

Girls game would be different. He is not reffing football players that he just coached. It is really not that difficult to see an obvious conflict. Anytime his star QB get the benefit of a questionable call/no-call, Grady would be scrutinized. I saw him do a game and I couldn’t help ask the question. It is human nature. Would the NCAA allow a similar situation? Why should the MHSA allow a lower standard?

As for state, Grady could take the assignment and still not get a Glacier game. The refs don’t do every single game and to have him sit for a Glacier game would have been easy.

And why are you giving him a pass for Glacier regular season games? He acknowledges a conflict could exist at state, but it is different for home Glacier games? That is ridiculous.

You make the assignment/ scheduler sound like they are pulling names out of a hat. They give lots of consideration to refs and coaches and potential issues. Some refs will never get a specific high school game because of perceived personal bias. There is absolutely no reason for Grady to do Glacier boys home games.

I know a girls game is different, but you better believe when he's out there in warmups, Flathead fans are rolling their eyes and assuming he's going to favor the Glacier girls (having been the girls' coach there in the past, and being a teacher there currently). I'm amazed how professional he is. Yeah, there's a potential conflict there, but Montana is full of small towns and you could find a potential conflict with anybody. And fans are idiots who will blame a ref for really dumb stuff because they need somebody to blame. I put zero stock in the statement that you've heard from people that he favors his players. Literally zero. Coaches voted him to be at state boys--that tells me everything I need to know. They would be the ones who see an actual conflict and they don't.

I'm not giving him a pass for regular season games. I'm acknowledging it's a bad look and saying that a conflict would be worse at state where games clearly mean more. And at state, they can't schedule around a conflict like that. There aren't enough officials there, and most of those assignments (if not all of them) are planned before the tournament starts. There would be no way of knowing in advance what games Glacier might be playing in.

In the regular season, the scheduler in the Flathead is not pulling names out of a hat, and I didn't make it sound that way. But you have maybe a half dozen good officials in that valley. There are another half dozen that are OK, and another dozen that you can maybe hide out there on the court somewhere for a varsity game. The scheduler has a hard job, finding qualified officials to do Varsity games in Eureka, Libby, Bigfork, C-Falls, Whitefish, Flathead, Glacier, and even out to Plains and Thompson Falls. I'd bet you a beer Grady has requested not to be put on Glacier games, but scheduling is hard with so few officials. He's always trying to work around those requests--trust me I know because I've met with him after complaints about a ref in Bigfork who's from Bigfork (originally) and shouldn't be working there, according to a coach from Thompson Falls. But Ref A works late and can't do a 6:00 varsity game. Ref B's kid is playing at West Valley and can't do a game until 7:30. Grady has after school meetings and can't make it out to Libby, so the only way they can use him is to put him in Kalispell.

I've heard it in this state about 100 different officials. His kid went to that school. He plays golf with that coach. He got in a fight with that coach 20 years ago outside a bar. Some of them are legitimate, most are not. I trust the coaches to tell us who's fair and who's not. If Grady wasn't fair, what coach in Boys' AA basketball, outside of Mark Harkins at Glacier, would vote for him to be at state?

All good points. Honestly, I am puzzled why Grady was selected to do AA state. You are in the area and said that you weren’t even aware that he was doing Glacier boys games. If he does “one or two” games, how does he get enough votes if coaches haven’t seen him ref? He obviously has name recognition, especially in the Missoula area. And I am not sure if Eastern coaches have a vote for officials from the Western AA schools.

I do know that each AA school has influence on who is selected from their area. If Grady has any relationship with the Flathead coach, he is probably in. I am guessing Grady does not do the crosstown. I know with other crosstown games like in Helena, they will bring in refs from another city to avoid any conflicts. The more I type, the more I feel Grady should not be allowed to do Glacier games. So we have established that the “look” is bad if it is state or a crosstown game. Why is the “look” not bad enough for Glacier home games?

I disagree with your assessment on the schedule for refs at state. They have a standby ref and substitutes ready to go. Making a change or swap is not that hard and identifying LEGITIMATE conflicts seems real easy. I would say that the varsity football coach of a program should not be reffing a basketball game that includes his recent players.

I appreciate the discussion and you have made some good points. I just think that a lot of uncertainty could easily be avoided by avoiding such conflicts. The NCAA would not allow it.

[kennethnoisewater]

Girls game would be different. He is not reffing football players that he just coached. It is really not that difficult to see an obvious conflict. Anytime his star QB get the benefit of a questionable call/no-call, Grady would be scrutinized. I saw him do a game and I couldn’t help ask the question. It is human nature. Would the NCAA allow a similar situation? Why should the MHSA allow a lower standard?

As for state, Grady could take the assignment and still not get a Glacier game. The refs don’t do every single game and to have him sit for a Glacier game would have been easy.

And why are you giving him a pass for Glacier regular season games? He acknowledges a conflict could exist at state, but it is different for home Glacier games? That is ridiculous.

You make the assignment/ scheduler sound like they are pulling names out of a hat. They give lots of consideration to refs and coaches and potential issues. Some refs will never get a specific high school game because of perceived personal bias. There is absolutely no reason for Grady to do Glacier boys home games.

I know a girls game is different, but you better believe when he's out there in warmups, Flathead fans are rolling their eyes and assuming he's going to favor the Glacier girls (having been the girls' coach there in the past, and being a teacher there currently). I'm amazed how professional he is. Yeah, there's a potential conflict there, but Montana is full of small towns and you could find a potential conflict with anybody. And fans are idiots who will blame a ref for really dumb stuff because they need somebody to blame. I put zero stock in the statement that you've heard from people that he favors his players. Literally zero. Coaches voted him to be at state boys--that tells me everything I need to know. They would be the ones who see an actual conflict and they don't.

I'm not giving him a pass for regular season games. I'm acknowledging it's a bad look and saying that a conflict would be worse at state where games clearly mean more. And at state, they can't schedule around a conflict like that. There aren't enough officials there, and most of those assignments (if not all of them) are planned before the tournament starts. There would be no way of knowing in advance what games Glacier might be playing in.

In the regular season, the scheduler in the Flathead is not pulling names out of a hat, and I didn't make it sound that way. But you have maybe a half dozen good officials in that valley. There are another half dozen that are OK, and another dozen that you can maybe hide out there on the court somewhere for a varsity game. The scheduler has a hard job, finding qualified officials to do Varsity games in Eureka, Libby, Bigfork, C-Falls, Whitefish, Flathead, Glacier, and even out to Plains and Thompson Falls. I'd bet you a beer Grady has requested not to be put on Glacier games, but scheduling is hard with so few officials. He's always trying to work around those requests--trust me I know because I've met with him after complaints about a ref in Bigfork who's from Bigfork (originally) and shouldn't be working there, according to a coach from Thompson Falls. But Ref A works late and can't do a 6:00 varsity game. Ref B's kid is playing at West Valley and can't do a game until 7:30. Grady has after school meetings and can't make it out to Libby, so the only way they can use him is to put him in Kalispell.

I've heard it in this state about 100 different officials. His kid went to that school. He plays golf with that coach. He got in a fight with that coach 20 years ago outside a bar. Some of them are legitimate, most are not. I trust the coaches to tell us who's fair and who's not. If Grady wasn't fair, what coach in Boys' AA basketball, outside of Mark Harkins at Glacier, would vote for him to be at state?

All good points. Honestly, I am puzzled why Grady was selected to do AA state. You are in the area and said that you weren’t even aware that he was doing Glacier boys games. If he does “one or two” games, how does he get enough votes if coaches haven’t seen him ref? He obviously has name recognition, especially in the Missoula area. And I am not sure if Eastern coaches have a vote for officials from the Western AA schools.

I do know that each AA school has influence on who is selected from their area. If Grady has any relationship with the Flathead coach, he is probably in. I am guessing Grady does not do the crosstown. I know with other crosstown games like in Helena, they will bring in refs from another city to avoid any conflicts. The more I type, the more I feel Grady should not be allowed to do Glacier games. So we have established that the “look” is bad if it is state or a crosstown game. Why is the “look” not bad enough for Glacier home games?

I disagree with your assessment on the schedule for refs at state. They have a standby ref and substitutes ready to go. Making a change or swap is not that hard and identifying LEGITIMATE conflicts seems real easy. I would say that the varsity football coach of a program should not be reffing a basketball game that includes his recent players.

I appreciate the discussion and you have made some good points. I just think that a lot of uncertainty could easily be avoided by avoiding such conflicts. The NCAA would not allow it.

Well, I'm sure Harkins voted for him, and I know he does Flathead games, so those Western AA coaches saw him work those games. Obviously he worked some Glacier games that I didn't know about too. Every coach in every corner of Montana can vote for any ref in any part of the state, even for tournaments before state. Grady did Western A this year also. So a coach in Culbertson could vote for Grady to do their district tournament (obviously nobody else would vote for him so that would be a wasted vote). A coach from Billings might have seen Grady do a non-conference game and voted for him for state.

I'm sure at state they could re-work some things in an emergency situation, but I doubt the MOA/MHSA want to do that. In the packet that the teams receive at the beginning of the tournament, it shows the refs they have and the games they're working (Game 1, Game 4, Game 7, Game 12 for instance). Saturday morning during loser out play they have every ref working at the same time basically. He just wanted to avoid that whole deal, which I respect. Like I said, I'm not the biggest fan of Grady as a coach, but I think he's a good man and a better than average ref.

I completely agree with you that ideally you'd avoid these conflicts altogether, but I just don't think you always can. If I'm a coach and we're playing against Glacier, I'd rather have Grady there than some of the really questionable officials in the Valley. I wouldn't like it, but I really believe it's the lesser of two evils. The referee shortage is very real, and I also think the scheduler in the Flathead is not all there. I'm not even sure he wants that job, but nobody else wants it and he's done officiating. But you're right. If Grady really wanted to put his foot down and say he's not doing Glacier games, I bet he could.

[catatac]

Interesting discussion, and it Kenneth has provided more than enough information to back up my earlier post. Like him or not, Grady is not going to call things biased in whatever officiating he does... in my opinion. He'd be more likely to err on the side of calling things against "his" kids rather than for them. As for how it looks, that's the part where I do agree with Cataholic... it probably isn't the best look.

[PapaG]

I'm guessing Grady does a pretty good job of fair officiating... but I could be wrong? Does anyone know if any coaches or parents have ever complained that he calls the games with bias?

Are you kidding me? Do you know of any ref that doesn’t have complaints against them?

But regardless of complaints or not, just from a “bad look” perspective, he shouldn’t be allowed to ref Glacier games. It definitely doesn’t look good, especially when there are other AA varsity games to take in the same city. I know of a number of officials that won’t ref games where there is any potential conflict. If NCAA doesn’t allow an alumnus to ref a game, why should MHSA not have similar standards?

Not exactly a deep pool of officials anywhere. You take what you can get. If he’s doing a good job, then so be it.
On the positive side, as a parent I’d have a lot harder time yelling at an official that was my son’s football coach!

No question we need more officials. But don’t forget that there are two high schools in Kalispell. Grady could easily be place on only Flathead games.

Here is hypothetical for your consideration. If Bobby Hauck was basketball ref for men’s Cat-Gris basketball, would you be okay with that? Wouldn’t Cat fans go crazy over potential bias?

Bitter college rivals =\= regular season high school. The higher the level of competition the more it matters as people’s careers are on the line. Post-season high school, maybe not have him on Glacier games. Regular season is meh.

I also coached at Glacier and at the time I only saw Grady reffing girls games, mostly sub-varsity. Maybe the dude loves to ref and is good at it? He had a long career at Flathead too. At the end of the day he’s a school district 5 employee, and bias shown like that would be seen and likely be ended quickly.

And how often are Glacier and Flathead playing on the same night at home and does he ref Flathead games too? So just “switching” isn’t really even an option. He’s in the MOA pool in the area so I’m sure he works where scheduled.

I can tell you that high school athletics mean an awful lot to a lot of people. In many cases, some people are more vested in high school games than college games as they have family or friends playing. Saying that high school games just aren’t as important so the “bad look” isn’t that big of a deal is a total cop out.

Grady is doing boys games. I have heard others say that he gives his players the benefit of the doubt. As a former coach, you know how vested we become in the success of the kids. It might not even be intentional, but I love to see my former players be successful. When I saw Grady doing a Glqcier game, before he even blew a whistle, I immediately thought that it was a conflict. The original post of this thread is about the NCAA not allowing a ref to do a game that she received her masters degree from. It is human nature and I think the MHSA and MOA group should have a similar standard to the NCAA.

Lastly, the MOA pool covers a large group of schools. It is not just Flathead and Glacier. If Grady loves reffing, there are a huge number of games to be covered in the area. Columbia Falls, Bigfork, Whitefish all have games to be covered. To have a current Varsity boys coach at a school reffing his players in another Varsity competition is just too much of a conflict for me. Isn’t the goal to have qualified impartial refs for every game?

Grady refs games all over the Flathead. I actually haven't seen him ref a Glacier boys' varsity game, but I could have obviously missed that. He was voted to ref State AA Boys but declined the invitation because he knew it wouldn't look good. That tells me he's pretty conscientious about that conflict, but it also tells me that AA basketball coaches like him as an official. I am not a fan of Grady as a coach and of Glacier as an athletic department, but I think Grady is a good guy and I think he's one of the best refs in the Flathead.

Now, Glenn Welch out of Missoula should definitely never be able to ref any Loyola games, and maybe he's finally retired, I'm not sure.

So he felt there might be a conflict at the State tourney, but not for Glacier home games? And I did see him do Glacier home boys games this year. Like I said earlier, not a good look.

Well yeah, I'm not sure why that's hard to believe. I'm sure he took a lot of heat for doing a Glacier home game, but doing a state tournament game would be far worse, would it not? I agree it's not a good look, but sometimes they can't make it work any other way. When it really matters at a state tournament, he did the right thing. And he doesn't pick his games in the regular season. A scheduler assigns him. I'm sure he could pitch a fit and opt out, and maybe he should. But I've watched him ref a crosstown girls' game, and he seems to go out of his way to not favor Glacier.

Girls game would be different. He is not reffing football players that he just coached. It is really not that difficult to see an obvious conflict. Anytime his star QB get the benefit of a questionable call/no-call, Grady would be scrutinized. I saw him do a game and I couldn’t help ask the question. It is human nature. Would the NCAA allow a similar situation? Why should the MHSA allow a lower standard?

As for state, Grady could take the assignment and still not get a Glacier game. The refs don’t do every single game and to have him sit for a Glacier game would have been easy.

And why are you giving him a pass for Glacier regular season games? He acknowledges a conflict could exist at state, but it is different for home Glacier games? That is ridiculous.

You make the assignment/ scheduler sound like they are pulling names out of a hat. They give lots of consideration to refs and coaches and potential issues. Some refs will never get a specific high school game because of perceived personal bias. There is absolutely no reason for Grady to do Glacier boys home games.

Quoting for the possibility of the first quoted posted being a long line of rows consisting of just a single letter.