As we are about to close the books on Day 4 of “America Held Hostage: SEC Officials Under Siege”, the one person we haven’t heard from is the head of the crew from last Saturday’s Florida-Arkansas officiating debacle.
Until now.
Shortly after it was announced by the conference that his crew had been suspended until Nov. 14, an interview with referee Marc Curles, head of the suspended crew, was posted on ESPN.com.
The interview paints Curles as a sympathetic figure, but sympathy was the last thing on the minds of some fans in the immediate aftermath of Saturday’s game. Curles said he was deluged by calls and emails from fans raging against the bogus personal foul penalty and the two very questionable pass interference calls — or non-call, as was the case in one of them. Some even accused the five-year SEC veteran of being on the take.
Needless to say, that didn’t sit well with Curles.
“I have gotten 50 or 60 e-mails just in the last two to three days,” Curles told ESPN.com‘s Mike Fish. “At work. I had about a half-dozen voice messages on my home phone when I got home Sunday. I have gotten phone calls [at work]. People are passionate about their teams, and I understand that. We kind of know what we are getting into when we do this. But some of things they say — think about what you are saying. Saying I should be investigated for gambling. Saying I should be ashamed of myself. Saying the conference is pulling the strings.
“If people could just understand there is a human element to it. Hey, I am trying my dead-level best. I am getting e-mail from folks accusing me of being on the take, all this kind of thing. We are absolutely trying to get it perfect every time. And nobody feels worse than we do when it doesn’t happen.”
To his credit, Curles admitted that he erred on the personal foul call.
“I understand people are passionate about their teams,” Curles says softly. “Like I said, we sign up for this. I admit I made a mistake in this ballgame. I deserve a little bit of people getting on me. I am getting on myself.
“From a personal viewpoint, I don’t need to hear what folks say, because I know if I made a mistake. And no one feels worse than I do. I have to evaluate myself. We are our own worst critics at times. All the media, the message boards and things like that, I honestly don’t listen to them too much. Just don’t listen to them, don’t read them.
Curles then went on to explain what he saw — or more importantly, what he didn’t see completely — on the personal foul call, saying that he “saw out of the corner of my eye what I thought was a foul. I can’t think something is a foul.”
Once again, none of this will assuage the angst of the Arkansas faithful, but it does put a human face on what was previously a faceless affront to college football.
Cry me a river, ZebraBoy.
And people wonder why I’m not a fan of college football. This crap happens all the time.
“Poo Flinging Monkey”
Screen names don’t get much better than that.
Why are people upset? The players are just there for the fun of the game. They aren’t even getting paid. It’s not a serious thing.
I, for one, do not believe for a second that Curles was bribed.
I think Curles merely wanted to do Tebow a solid, after St. Timothy laid hands upon Curles’s grandmother, thus driving out the demons that caused her gout.
curles and his dishonest sec crew will get no sympathy or mercy from us in the civil courts, nor will those who have beed covering for him and other dishonest officials at the sec and at every other conference and at the ncaa level for years.
whether curles was on the take or just doing something that he and his crew perceived to be for the benefit of the sec conference by making the calls and non calls necessary for florida to win and therby the chances of the sec getting 2 teams, florida and alabama, into bcs championship games, with the winner of the alabama/florida sec playoff game playing for the national championship and the loser going to another bcs game with big payoffs and bonuses, does not really matter to us.
nor is the suspension move by the sec conference sufficient for us.
we easily have the all pac 10 crew at the notre dame/usc gameand the big 10 crews at the notre dame/michigan and notre dame/michigan state games in the same dishonest category.
there were simply to many dishonest calls and non calls in those games, all favoring the temporary winning team on paper for now for this mistake bullshit to fly at all, with the exception of the notre dame/michigan state game in which the notre dame team beat both michigan state and the dishonest big 10 ref crew in the final score.
unlike the gentleman above, we are not giving up on college football or college sports.
in the civil courts, we are taking economic wrecking balls to the current corrupt conference and ncaa officiating and rules enforcement systems and shoving high tech and transparent officiating systems down their throats before next season.
the 1st big barrier that we have brought down is the veil of secrecy behind which these crooked systems have been operated for years by forcing the ncaa in the civil courts to make public every document and transcipt relating to the ncaa investigation of academic cheating in the florida state athletic department, only after the ncaa had spent millions in attorneys’ fees trying to defeat us and trial and on appeal.
curles and every official from every conference who makes dishonest calls or non calls and those who protect them will be seeing us at depositions and in the civil courts and taking their material possessions, either by settlements or by judgments after trials, as we did with the con artists who used to run enron and mci worldcom.
we have not been gathering evidence and having our experts breaking down game films and adding to our group of experienced trial attorneys all over the us just for the sheer joy of doing so.
every single official from every conference is right in our very candid cameras in every game this season and now going back to 2005.
our experts do not characterize as dishonest any officiating conduct which falls into gray areas, but only obvious patterns of conduct which have zero justification in the rules and on the field, as viewed by our experts on game films with the best equipment for zooming in and catching detail.
we are even able to pick up most of the sound, including threats made by players on one team to players on another and verbal exchanges among officials.
the veils of secrecy are now down permanently for every participant in crooked college sports enterprises.
those who want to commit premediated career and economic suicide can make that choice, as some individuals at enron and mci worldcom did in the past.
others who want to step foward and tell the truth and provide evidence will have much softer economic landings than the ken lays and bernie ebbers of crooked college sports enterprises.
Posted at 3:22 a.m.? Maybe you should ease up on the energy drinks…
For whatever reason, this crew simply was not ready to officiate this game. During the first half, the Flordia center was jerking his head just before the snap–a clear false start. The Arkansas coaches got so frustrated, they instructed their nose tackle to swat the Florida center. When that occurred at the start of the second half, nothing happened. These acts, jerking the head and swatting the helmet were both fouls but nothing was called. Even worse, the Florida interior linemen (especially #76) would pick up or move his hand after he put it on the ground. This is a clear penalty. Now, sometimes the officials do a “talk to” to correct this type of thing, but this crew, again for whatever reason, couldn’t even get this simple concept. They should be suspended for the season. A message must be sent. These were not “judgment” calls but clear and obvious poor officiating.
Hey, Bobby G, do you have any specific info on a law suit (or planned law suits) that you keep alluding to? You refer to “civil” courts but I just can’t tell what exactly you’re talking about, man.
If I’m not mistaken, FSU/NCAA were forced to disclose all documents because FSU is a state institution and the state of Florida has very comprehensive public records (“sunshine”) laws.
All this crew did to get suspended was to make their calls a bit too obvious. Of course the SEC wants the higher ranked team to win. Follow the money (sound familiar?). Good luck to Tennessee and Mississippi State on getting a fair game tomorrow!