Here is another part in the series from back in the day of the LAEFL. This is from 2002 of April 24 after game day 2 and the Commissioner David (SARS) Campbell thought some words about sportsmanship were needed.
Coaches,
Despite my two loses, I had a good time at our last Game Day Sunday. I hope that everyone else had as much fun as I did. We had good fellowship, good food, and good clean fun playing electric football, what a winning combination. Speaking of winning, I know that some tempers flared during some of Sunday’s games and I believe that this is because of everyone’s competitive spirit. We all want to have fun, but at the same time we all want to win. I know I must have freaked all of ya’ll out when I did my little “dispey-do dance” across the room and knocked over the water. I wasn’t actually trying to knock over the water, I just wanted to swing at the air and I accidentally hit the cup. Ya’ll should have seen your faces, the whole room just stopped like, “What the heck is wrong with him? Is that Dave?”
It was quite hilarious when I think about it. Although my anger was not directed at an individual but at a situation, I’m sorry if I spooked any of you all and I’ll try my best not to do it again. However, I’m not 100% sure that I won’t because I know that I’m nowhere near perfect. As coaches we should never have the intent of getting angry or going off and we should always try not to. But when someone does go off we, as refs, opponents, and other participants, should try to remember that this is neither the norm nor their intent, and that the situation just got the best of them. In other words these types of things happen and we shouldn’t take them personally, even if we are their ref or opponent for that game.
As refs need to do our best to be impartial, both coaches need to feel that it doesn’t matter who wins to the ref, and that the calls are being made fairly on a consistent basis. At the same time we as coaches need to respect the refs call. Trust me, there will be some botched calls! We will ALL make some bad calls and we will ALL have some bad calls go against us, it’s inevitable. It’s also realistic. We should all try to keep this in mind when we play and we should all try to remain respectful towards one another. Is this making sense, I feel like I’m rambling on and on so I’ll stop here. I was just thinking about last Sunday and this is what came out.
I’m out to work on my squad, I’ve got ten games left to try to make the playoffs and the Browns, from the looks of their schedule, will be 9-1 by the time we meet them again when conference play resumes. I’ve got work to do! Coach DMC LAEFL – New York Electric Football Giants
LAEFL 