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OK so here I am in my 3rd scrimmage ever. I am a brand new official and this is the 3rd time I am on the court.
I show up early and it turns out that the school rearranged the scrimmages so varsity is first then the JV and Frosh boys games.
And the school we are at is Palo Verde, the team that won the state championship last year and is a very big and athletic team. At least two guys are playing D1 ball next year.
So only two other officials show up. Of the two, one is experienced and one is a 2nd year guy who had never worked 3 man.
I volunteered to help out, even though I barely know 2 man let alone 3 man.
What a blast!!! I had a great time.
On top of all that, the assigner for the whole association showed up and after he got over being pissed that more people didnt show up to work the scrimmage he had some real nice things to say about what I did. A senior official arrived after our first 20 minute period and he subb'd in for me. But I stayed. And they put me back in to work the varsity game some more. And I stayed and worked the JV game that followed afterwards. A few other seniour guys showed up to evaluate (thinking, I guess, that there would be more senior guys there working who wanted evaluation) and they were super helpful to me.
It was great to be put in that situation and just have to do it. I tried to just call the game first and worry about positioning second. The JV game we went back to 2 man mechanics. But I got a ton of whistle time--two 20 minute periods (running clock) for the varsity (at a high level of competition, the opposing team was good too) and then 5 10 minute periods (running clock) for the JV. I really saw some improvement in my calls and most importantly in my signals and my reporting and communicating with my partner.
"Hey, newbie, you work 3 man varsity today on the team that won state last year."
If they had told me that before I showed up I might have been nervous, but basically thats what happened by default.
Clark
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