Ex-NBA referee Joey Crawford advocates for challenge systems

INDIANAPOLIS — Joey Crawford, one of the most polarizing NBA referees during his long tenure in the league, said the new challenge systems in sports are good because they hold officials accountable.

This season, Major League Baseball introduced its automatic ball-strike (ABS) system. Batters, pitchers and catchers can challenge calls throughout the game using an automated tracking system introduced this season. Each team is given two wrong calls before their challenges are over. The NBA has had a coaches challenge system since 2019, the NHL since 2015, and the NFL since 1999.

“You’re paid to call plays correctly. You’re paid to call them the right way,” said Crawford, who still works for the NBA supporting officials. “So we train the refs and they’re very, very good. They’re going to make mistakes. They’re the ones that miss jump shots. The coach calls a timeout that they shouldn’t have called. It’s all the same thing. We have to look. You’re at the end of the game. The main thing is not to blow the whistle and guess. You’ve got to figure out that it happened. Don’t assume it happened.”

Crawford, who was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame on Saturday, said the day he missed an important call, he used to regret it.

“I love [the challenges]. I didn’t do that in the beginning, but now I like it because at the end of the game you have to understand that if you screw up the game, you’re going to go back to the hotel scared,” he said. “I spent a lot of nights like that.”

Throughout his time as an NBA referee from 1977 to 2016, he was one of the most recognized and controversial officials in the game. He said that, although he always seemed unaffected by those notions, privately they troubled him.

“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t matter [me]. This bothered me. Yes it did. But that’s the job,” he said. “When you get on the court, half the people will like you, half the people will hate you and you just have to take that particular game, go out, call the plays, do it to the best of your ability and stay in shape. My father said, ‘These guys know when you work hard and if you’re working hard they’ll look the other way.'”

However, Crawford said that not all of his criticisms were fair. He said he felt he was unfairly criticized for the way he handled “superstars”.

“Look at the referee shirt [not players]. They look at the shirt,” he said. “And then they say, ‘Okay, you made that mistake. You didn’t call it a walk, you didn’t do that. And I’d say, ‘Who had the ball?’ And he said, ‘Well, Michael Jordan had the ball, so he did it.’ I said, ‘Who has the ball at the end of the game?’ Who?’ And they’ll say, ‘Michael Jordan.’

“It’s every team. The best player has the ball at the end of the game, so if you’re going to make a mistake, you’re usually going to make a mistake on that best player. And I think that’s where the superstar thing comes from.”