The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-03-06
|YMCA 'CENTRALS
 PROTEST REFEREE
 AND PAIRING PLAN
Tournament Was Poorly Managed, Andrews
 States in Blast"

the Boys club has created anything but the good will and sportsman ship intended by it's sponsors is evi- dent from the following communi. cation signed by Bill Andrews, sec- retary of the "Y' Centrals, elim. mated by the Boys club Gaels in the championship game. The let- ter is selg-explanatory and appar. ently insists on a hearing of it's charges by a protest committee. the members of whom were sur. 'prised to know of their appoint ment.
 The communication follows: To Sports Editor:
 This letter concerns the very re- cent Intra-club tourney which was held at the Boys club under the auspices of that organization. l information on the above mem able.
 To begin with the whole tourney was a bare faced farce, was poorly managed, poorly officiated and crudely handled. The official who handled the semi-finals was down. right awful. to say the least. I might mention here that the ref- cree was none other than Lou Kelley whose travels although they may have broadened his mind. cer. tainly did not improve his tech- nique as a basketball referee. Kel- liey's lack of experience and in- ability to handle the game was in evidence throughout the contest. Kelley's crude attempts to offset his atrocious errors by clowning and joking only tended to arouse the ire of the participants to higher degree. The North End Colts received a deal from the bot tom of the deck. The Croft Alumni taking advantage of their oppo- nents' height capitalized on the referees leniency and proceeded to rough things up to such an ex- tent that the Colts gave up in dls- gust and allowed the Croft Alumni to score without any apparent at- tempt to stop them. In the second game of the semi-finals in which the Centrals met the Gaels, Kelley lost complete control of the contest when the game became much too fast for him. At the completion of the game the Centrals protested the contest on the contention that Kelley had put the ball in play at center illegally 40 seconds before the close fo the game at time when the Centrals were leadwing 32 to 30. On this center play Da- melio scored hoop and this to- gether with Rinaldi's basket 35 later won the game for the Gaels. A typed protest was dis- patched within 24 hours to the protest committee in car of Ted O'Donnell, the physical director of the Boys club. Under the tourney rules the protest committee was to be composed of Chick Kelley, Bill Schofield and Louis Laun. Later in the cday (which was Saturday. when Chick was informed of the protest by members off the Gen. trals he was quite surprised to find out he was tourney official. When Bill Schofield was asked about being tourney official healso was I wonder what Lou Laun would say?
 On Monday, the day of the finals a conference was held at the Boys club between Coach Mccarthy of the Centrals and Ted O'Donnell at which Damelio and Griffen of the Gaels, Crawley of the Centrals were in atteidance. At this meeting the protest was produced by O'Donnell and he stated that he thought the Centrals had very little grounds on which to base our protest and that 1 vryn hn do cept the Centrals a return game fourteen days-of course after the tourney was over and there was no prize or title at stake so the farthest the protest got was Ted's desk and no further, but l suppose even that is considered very good at the club.
 During the course of the discuss sion we inquired about the system of matching teams throughout the first, second and semi-final rounds and we were informed that the bracket system was used after the first round draw. This system can only be used successfully when there are four, eight, or sixteen teams, whereas there were only teams in the Intra-club tourney. The Centrals were in the lower bracket and their number for the draw was thirteen. After the first round matches had been played there were seven teams left in the tournament making it nec- essary for adraw in order to see which team would be given the bye, but instead of drawing lots for the bye it was announced that the Colts in the lower bracket had drawn the bye. In the semi-finals when the Croft Alumni should have met the Gaels and the Colts should have played the Centrals the tourney was still teams by use of the brackets, it was the other way around; the Croft Alumni meeting theColts and the Gaels playing the Centrals.
 In my opinion the above facts and they are facts, mentioned in the above paragraphs are grounds enough to complain and protest on. hope that the truth has light. ened the burden of defeat which other contestants as well as the Centrals had to bear because of the whole burlesqued affair. Instead of promoting good will and good sportsmanship between the differ. ent clubs of the citl, it has cre.. ated i'll feeling and 1t certainly has not promoted good sportsmanship The only result of the tourney was a brand new black eye the Boys club is now sporting.
 rI4rtuop <Hot houa 0AAnA <A $hA which the sporting public has been given to this affair.
 Yours for cleaner sports and better treatment in future tourna- ments.
 Yours truly,
 THE "" GENERALS,