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Great forum. Been reading and following for a long time.
I work basketball in an area/state that encourages people to work with regular partners -- the same partner night after night.
Last Friday night I worked my last game of the basketball season and some lingering issues with my regular partner came to a head on Friday on a play where, admittedly, I probably made a poor decision.
Boys varsity -- I was the lead official. Big kid from visiting team drove down the lane. Home defender stepped up and there was some contact. Not terribly severe in my initial estimation. Also, I had determined that if I was going to call a foul, it was a block since the B player closed on the airborne shooter.
The A player had no problem completing the layup, and the B player went down. Not too hard, I didn't think, and not from the initial contact -- and I thought the flow of the game warranted a no call at this point. (My only hard and fast rule of thumb is if both players go down I will call something. I may need to reexamine this.)
The B player got up and at this point I noticed some blood coming from his mouth. Lip it turns out -- he got hit in the mouth somehow, and his lip became part of his teeth momentarily.
At this point I felt pretty lousy watching the trainer attend to the player. With blood coming out of his mouth, I should've had SOMETHING on the play, although the home team and fans wouldn't have liked the call, I'm sure.
Anyway, back to the partner issue. First I need to provide a little background:
Twice before this season, while on the court, my partner questioned me openly about calls I made (or didn't make).
(1) Boys varsity. Long rebound comes out towards midcourt, where I'm the trail. Player from A gets control of the rebound and then takes one final step that puts his foot in the backcourt. I was on the line and determined control was ascertained CLEARLY in the frontcourt. I whistled the violation and then started the "run" half of the bump-and-run when my partner tweeted his whistle from the baseline and came out and asked me what I had. I was pretty stunned at this, but told him and he said, "I just wanted to be sure." Huh?
(2) Boys varsity. I'm trail. 3-point shot goes up and the shooter comes back down with somewhat unsteady feet. Defender boxing out bumps the shooter after he had returned to the floor and I decided to pass on a call. As the shooter returned to the floor, I stepped down to officiate the rebound. When the bump happened, I turned my attention back to the two players that were right in front of me. I wasn't calling this a foul.
There was a timeout right after this, and my partner walked up with a scowl on his face and said, "You didn't have a FOUL there?" I said, "Nope, " trying not to get annoyed at the fact that he was questioning me on the floor on a play that happened in my primary on the other side of the court. He came back with, "You looked away. You gotta have a foul there. You gotta keep your eyes on the shooter there. [The coach] wanted a foul there."
I chose to agree with him at halftime -- I backed down, essentially, in the name of partner relations, but looking back, I did take the shooter back down. What happened afterwards didn't warrant a foul, and in a 2-official crew I gotta help out on the rebounds.
Back to the "present."
While the trainer is attending to the player, my partner comes up to me, in front of players who were watching the trainer get the kid to the bench, and says rather loudly, "You didn't have a FOUL there? He's bleeding all over the place and you didn't have a foul there?"
I turned to him and said quietly, "Don't start this sh1t with me tonight," and went to get a towel so I could wipe up the blood from the court. We literally didn't say a word to each other from that point forward. Not during halftime, not after the game, not the 60 miles I drove home.
These three incidents are the only times we've talked off the floor about basketball. He doesn't like talking about the game at halftime or after the game is over. When I try to bring something up to improve my officiating or our work as a crew, he steers the conversation away from the game.
I didn't stop being his partner on the court, though. He called a blocking foul later in the game. It was a good call, and a home player decided to jump around and show him up and did so right in the back of my partner reporting the foul. So I had my partners back and whacked the player. As I whistled the technical, my partner looked back at me, rolled his eyes, and gave me a look of, "How could you make a call like that now?" Of course, this from a partner who simply doesn't call technicals and when I called one on a girls varsity coach the previous week, he looked at me the same way.
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The game was crap from this point forward. The coach of the kid bleeding didn't argue, yell, anything. He kept coaching his team as if nothing happened. They were severely outmatched, only dressing 7 players, and losing by 30+ points.
I'm trying to figure out a way to learn from this. I guess I have some time to think things over now that the season is finished for me. I don't know if my partner reads this site, nor do I really care at this point, as I anticipate that we've worked our last game together.
I've always thought that the sign of a good partner is one who will stand by the crew during the toughest of times. I've worked baseball with this guy -- he's not a good baseball umpire and I saw him kick some very obvious calls in the field, but I would never dream of questioning a partner's call on the field and undermining my crew. I am a football crew chief (high school) and a college baseball umpire and I've never had a partner at this level behave so badly.
Thanks for letting me rant, and any comments or suggestions are welcome.
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