Whatever you want to call it, if these officials cannot exercise better judgement than this, they have no business calling a game. http://www.hoopville.com/ Penders Collapses During Cougars' Game: Houston coach Tom Penders, usually energetic and lively, had a frightening incident during yesterday's loss at Alabama-Birmingham. Penders collapsed to the floor near the end of the first half after the Blazers scored on a layup and the officials called a foul. Penders jumped out of his chair and then fainted. He has a medical condition called cardiomyopathy that causes a heart inflammation, which is the likely cause of the fainting spell. After receiving oxygen in the locker room, Penders came around and returned to the bench in the second half to coach. The well-deserved concern for Penders' life leaves a sticky matter unresolved, however. When Penders fell to his knees while passing out, the officials thought he was sarcastically reacting to their call on the Blazers' basket. They assessed Penders with a technical foul and did not rescind it even after Penders was carried off the court on a stretcher. Usually, officials are reluctant to renege a call, but in this case, that would have been the only fair call. Alabama - Birmingham hit both technical foul free throws. Houston lost 82-79, but who knows how those two points would have changed the Cougars' strategy down the stretch. Someone needs to tell the officials that it's OK to admit a mistake during the game in a handful of special circumstances. This was one of them, and they blew it. [1/22/06]
That's amazing. Hopefully the NCAA will address this and give the refs some guidelines, like USE SOME COMMON SENSE!
Doesn't matter. It could be argued that for a second he was light-headed before he fainted and didn't know where his feet were. Can refs receive a suspension for a certain number of games?
