Hi rainmaker! I'm not sure if you saw my thread yet about my first official game, but I can empathize on how you feel, just from the other POV, being that rookie.
My partner (veteran) was great at keeping me in the game. During timeouts/intermissions we'd have a really quick discussion, and I would honestly tell him, "the only things I see in my area is even less than ticky-tacky stuff...if on a scale of 1(ticktack) to 5(flagrant), everything in my area was like 0.2...definitely not worth prolonging a game with those kind of fouls." He then told me, "good, just call 'em like you see 'em" He also askedme questions on how I think the game is going. That helped me out, since nothing was happening in my area, I could have just slept the whole game.
But I think rockyroad summed it up in his advice. So I will just add this lil tid bit. My martial arts teacher taught me a valuable lesson many years ago..."always remember when you were a white belt" and "a school is only as strong as its weakest student." Us rookies do need your help, and since you have reached your new personal level plateau, using the same lessons my master taught me in 'officiating' terms..."always remember your first game" and "an officials' team 'lives or dies' together."
I really appreciate your advice for me everytime I had a question on this forum, hope my advice here helps you!
