[CYO Butch]

Originally posted by BktBallRef

What difference does it make whether a girl grabs the ball in her arms versus a boy who grabs the ball with his hands?

It's disappointing when people expect a quicker whistle in girls games because they're scraed the "little girls are going to get hurt." People complain all the time about girls games being called differently than boys, yet you advocate that so they won 't get hurt. Well, if they're concerned about their little girl getting hurt, then they should keep her at home and let her play with Barbies.

I call a girls game the same way I do boys. If there's the possibility of a held ball. I'll wait an extra second or two to see if someone will pull it away before it's an actual held ball. If I don't, sure enough, someone will pull it away just as the whistle blows.

If the players are on the floor, I'll blow it a little quicker simply because it's less likely that someone is going to come away with it and because I don't want players diving on the pile.

But those standards are for boys AND girls. One gender deserves no more protection than the other.

Of course the standards are for boys And girls. The standard includes, and I quote again "A held ball occurs when opponents have their hands so firmly on the ball that control cannot be obtained without undue roughness. Girls tend to wrap their arms around the ball, perhaps because their opponents are not strong enough to just pull it away quickly by brute force, perhaps for some other reason. In any case, that causes a situation in which "undue roughness" is much more likely. The officials are required to use their judgment as to when that line is crossed. I believe that the line gets crossed differently between girls and boys. Maybe there is the same amount of elapsed time that good officials wait to make their determination but since girls tend to wrestle longer than boys, it just seems that they tend to wait longer than necessary for girls. An official should not have to wait until kids go flying and undue roughness has already occurred before they can judge that undue roughness is the only way one kid will get the ball from another.

I assure you, I am not one who is afraid that "my little girl will get hurt" playing basketball, but neither am I one to watch kids getting hurt when an experienced official could prevent it by exercising good judgment.