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I had the pleasure this past weekend of working with a guy I worked with my first couple of months on the job and it reminded me of a story I have when I worked with him the first time .
I had been reffing about a month and I was starting to get confident about my abilty to "see" the court when I showed up one Saturday morning to work some mid-level AAU games . My partner that day was a seasoned D-1 ref (also a very physically intimidating dude )who I had seen working on numerous occasions (He only worked with one other guy...who happened to be a D-1 guy as well) but I had never spoken with because he didn't "chat" with the other guys . I approached him to speak about how he would like to handle these games (Switching only on shooting fouls or every foul etc) and let him know that I was fairly new and if he saw anything he thought I should work on to let me know . He grunted his answers and we ran through the first half pretty easily although towards the end of the half he seemed to get a little lazy on signalling a 3 point attempt when he was the lead and the ball was down in his corner so I helped him out and signalled the 3 point attempt was good when they went in . This also happened a few times in the second half an I again helped him out and the game ended with no issues . I was feeling pretty happy with myself for holding my own with a respected veteran and when we went into the locker room to rest between games I asked him if there was anything I needed to work on . He looked me right in the eye for about 4 seconds without saying anything and then said "If you keep looking in my area and signal one more three pointer I will break your F*&*&$ arms" then he turned and walked away. Needless to say I was shocked and the next two games I don't even think I looked anywhere near his primary (a little bit of an exageration)..
We sat down after the game and he actually told me that he had been watching me ref and had requested to work with me because he had noticed two things 1)I had a desire to get better because he heard me asking questions to some of the veteran officials there and then actually listening to their answers. 2) He noticed I was ball watching and wanted to break me of the habit and get me to trust my partners .
Lesson learned !!!! A good friend was made and I ball watch no more !
[Edited by WeekendRef on Apr 19th, 2005 at 12:06 AM]
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