Quote:
Originally Posted by JRutledge
You do not have any friends in officiating that you can talk to about these things? There are times when things need clarification and I contact people that I respect not on this site ... connected to people that are in IAABO, so why not ask them.
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With rare exemption, my personal life and basketball officiating have few dove-tails outside of basketball season, and unlike others on the Forum, basketball season for me is a strictly November to March endeavor.
I view the Forum as an educational resource, as much as a rulebook, casebook, mechanics manual, IAABO International, my local board, You Tube, or some other website. And I have a high degree of respect for Forum members, especially the regular posters, who have a much better grasp of basketball rules and mechanics than 95% of the guys on my local board, a small percentage who don't know, or who don't care, if the basketball is stuffed, or inflated.
Got a question? Why not ask the Forum? And I'm not a big fan of the "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" philosophy when it comes to using the Forum as an educational resource. It's the twenty-first century. The internet was invented for a reason, let's use it to our advantage. There a ton of basketball officiating expertise on the Forum. Why let it go to waste?
I do have access to the IAABO International "Gang of Four" co-interpreters. However, they are responsible to over 15,000 IAABO members, and I only contact them with pressing matters of great importance. When I've contacted them they have been gracious in their replies, and on occasion have "bumped" up the question to their "connections" at the NFHS. While my local interpreter is quite good, and approachable, I view that individual position of authority as quite limited in scope, especially when I want "NFHS-level" answers relevant to all situations, including situations outside of my little corner of Connecticut.