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Monday, September 24, 2018

Complete Florida Division Collegiate Club Results From Gainesville Tourney



***competitive games and questionable officiating highlight the weekend




CoCONUT DIVIsion FINAL SCORES:

UF B    VS    UCF A 6-16
UF A    VS    UCF B 22-2
USF      VS    FSU 13-18
UM        VS    FAU 6-11
UF B     VS    UCF B 13-9
UF A     VS    FSU 21-6
UCF A  VS    UM 16-4
USF       VS    FAU 7-10
UCF A  VS    FSU 11-8
UCF B   VS    FAU 6-15
UF B      VS    UM 5-14
UF A     VS    USF 16-4
FAU       VS    UCF A 6-8
UM         VS    FSU 13-12
UCF B   VS    USF 4-15
UF A      VS    UF B 5-0


Affectionately known as the Coconut Division, the Florida Men's Collegiate Club Division was in full swing this weekend in Gainesville at Florida Pool on the campus of UF. Before the tourney was over I had 9 complaints about the officiating. After almost every tourney or game there's always a complaint about officiating depending on who wins or loses, you have to take them with a grain of salt. But 9 from the same tournament coming from different sources....out of the ordinary.

So I did a little snooping, an email here and an email there...

Apparently the CWPA, the self-proclaimed governing overseer of college water polo instructed the referees to "be aggressive and call more ejections because it was live stream" (this little tidbit of info comes from a referee who worked the tourney). Wow are you kidding me? 

Keep in mind this is the same organization who proclaimed some Cali women's club team (who didn't qualify for Nationals) third place in their year end poll over the Gator women who actually won third in the pool & have the National Championship Tournament trophy to prove it,

This kind of BS logic for the sake of a "live audience" sets a dangerous precedence and will seriously jeopardize the integrity of the game as well as having a trickle down effect on the refs.

For example: 

One ref was questioned about the general body of work concerning his officiating and not conferring with his partner, the answer: "Oh well it's only club". Only club??? WTF, if the attitude towards club polo is that then we might as well shut down the whole program, right?

Another squad had 40 offensive fouls called against them and also an illegal entry. The entry call was purely on technical BS, had no impact on the game, but the athlete was rolled none-the-less. The athlete came into the exclusion area between the goal and the sideline entering play after the 20 seconds about 3 feet from the wall and not “the corner". Ticky Tacky.

I'm not going to list all the other complaints, my point has been made...

Lastly, I'm encouraging the refs to reject this neanderthal logic in the future and call the game straight. Don't hurt the integrity of the game due to a "live audience", don't punish the athletes who work hard in the pool while juggling academic life and lastly don't soil your reputation & credibility as a professional for an organization who's using you like a pawn.





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