[LarryS]

Working rec games with my son on Saturday (he is just starting) and I want to see if you think I gave some bad advice on a couple of situations. We were calling 4th grade level games (read “herd ball”) so I was able to “expand my zone” a few times and look for things to use a teaching moments (since if the ball was not within reach of a player they were just standing still and watching the game).

Sit. 1 – A2 and B1 are side-by-side (there is a little gap between them), rebound is coming toward them. B1 reaches his arm out, and slightly of his left, to tap the ball away. Just then A2, reaching slightly to his right, grabs the ball, pulls his arms in and turns to his left. However, when he did this he pinned B1’s arm between his arm and torso. Thus when he turned, B1 was pulled around A2 and (as you can imagine) caused A2 to stumble. He called a hold on A2. While technically A2 was “holding” B1, I told him that most of the time he would see that called as a foul on B.

Sit. 2 – A1 steals the ball in B’s backcourt and starts driving toward the basket. B2 takes a position at the edge of the lane and prepares to take the charge. When A1 is getting ready to make contact, B2 takes a little step back and starts to recoil (clearly before the contact). My son called a block on B2. I will state categorically that if it was high school varsity I would hold the position that B bailed too soon and blocked A1 in his attempt and make the same call he made. However, I told him that at this age level he should be a little more giving and allow a 10 year old to still draw the charge even though he “recoiled” a tad early.

Do you agree or disagree with these assessments? My concern now is that I probably should have kept quite and kept the focus on things like communication, position, mechanics, and (from my position) what appeared to be interpretation errors.

One more week at this age before the assignor moves us to grades 6/7 games…not a lot more skill, but not always herd ball.