That's my thing too Rock...consistency. If you're going to call something a foul in the first half, call the same thing through the whole game. If something is a technical on one team, call it on the other team if they do it. I can understand if you're an official starting out, making horrible calls b/c you've not seen the game from an official's perspective that much and it takes court time to get good at it. If I tried to be an official, it would take me at least 5 years, if not longer, to get decent at it and be able to call a good consistent game...and even then I'd still make mistakes...BUT hopefully I would have improved.

That being said--there's such a thing as good experience and bad experience. If you're out there just calling whatever to your heart's content, and you're on a power-trip like some of these guys seem to be, then that's BAD experience. If you're out there honestly trying to call it down the middle and keep things consistent and within the rules, then that's good experience. Bad experience is what a lot of these officials around here keep getting...especially those 3 that reffed the Coeburn/Kelly game last week...if you've got to toss 1 or 2 rowdy fans out, that's officiating and keeping control. If you're stopping the game to actively scan the crowd to toss 3-4 more, then that's power-tripping and wrong.

Good experience means as an official yes you will make mistakes, you will get cussed, but you'll be improving as an official. Bad experience means you're making mistakes, but don't care one way or the other about getting better based on your mistakes--you're just out there for yourself, not for the kids. If you don't get better, you waste everyone's time and need to stop.