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I am merely a HS official. I have a certain mentality when I work a game.
I own my primary and realize I can't go reaching out of it in an effort to save the world. If I do that, I might get a call right, but I'm losing ownership of my primary. And I'm just as likely to get a call wrong.
Frankly, this is easiest to do when I don't know the other officials well. We work a lot of games in crews and when I work with my regular guys, we are really comfortable grabbing something we think a partner missed and the lines on the floor get, unfortunately, blurred.
But when I'm with relative strangers, I think to myself -- I want them to think of me as a good partner. And I only reach when I know I have to and have an open look at what I'm reaching for. Stay in my damned primary.
There are times when all eyes have to be on the ball. Last possession, player takes it to the rack or elevates for a winning jump shot. There's nothing else that matters there. If there's contact from the backside or something the primary official CAN'T see, then we have to come and get it. Otherwise? It's just one call in a 36 minute game and I'm not injecting a whole bunch of nonsense into a game just so we MAYBE get the call right on the floor.
A lot of these "reaching" scenarios involve one official (not primary) substituting his judgment for another's (primary). That's just wrong, completely wrong.
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