[ChuckElias]

Originally posted by Jurassic Referee
Chuck, Isn't this camp more of an NCAA evaluation camp rather than a camp geared to high school officials- i.e. it was run by D1 assignors from the north-east like Mickey Crowley and Edgar Cartotto.?

It is indeed run by Mickey Crowley who is a D1 men's assignor. And many of the observers there were also D1 assignors; some for men's games, some for women's. And while my own (and, I suspect, many other campers') motive for going to the camp was to impress the D1 assignors, the camp is explicitly described as NOT being a try-out camp. Mickey promotes the camp as a FUN way to improve your officiating skills. To get hired by any of the assignors, a camper would probably still have to attend some sort of try-out camp. I've only been to 5-Star twice, but I've never heard of someone getting a D1 contract right after leaving this camp.

do you think that they offer less or more in the teaching end- vis-a-vis tips that would actually help you at all levels- or was it more "observation" versus "teaching"?

The teaching and classroom material at this camp is second only to NunnBetter, in my opinion. There is a heavy emphasis on the classroom material and it runs the gamut from very technical -- positioning in specific situations -- to more general -- what "game awareness" means -- to more holistic -- evaluating basketball's place in your life.

Once on the court, the observation and critique was generally specific and positive. You can imagine the minutiae that a D1 assignor sees in my D3 skills.

Do the evaluators kinda take for granted that the skills of any camper attending is pretty advanced, or are there some campers there that are maybe behind the bulk of the other campers when it comes to experience and knowledge?

I don't think that is taken for granted. I would say that there was a pretty wide range of skill-levels. I worked a game with an official who had only 3 years of experience. And he wasn't the only one there at that level. Out of the 80 or 75 officials there, I would say that the large majority had some kind of college experience, but that experience was not a prerequisite for attending.

In fact, I think that a couple of the observers would prefer it if more of the less-experienced officials attended the camp. One of the observers mentioned to me that it was unfortunate (but understandable) that the camp was becoming more of a "be seen" camp, than a teaching camp.

I also wanna hear about Dan's T-fest. Seven T's in 2 games? Is that normal or abnormal for this type of camp?

I'll let Dan tell his own stories, but I only threw one T all weekend.