View Single Post
  #6 (permalink)  
Old Wed May 25, 2005, 09:08am
ChuckElias ChuckElias is offline
Official Forum Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Western Mass.
Posts: 9,105
Send a message via AIM to ChuckElias
To be honest, Dave, I didn't have a lot of fun at my first camp. I was just too nervous. I was really glad I did it, but I wasn't able to enjoy it at the time.

Having said that. . .

Notebook is a very good idea. You'll hear lots of stuff, and you won't remember it all in November. So write as much as you can.

Somebody mentioned "full uniform". I would highly recommend that you ask what the camp uniform is. You don't want to take pants, when everybody else is in shorts. Conversely, you don't want to take shorts and then have to drive to Walmart to buy two pairs of black polyester pants and then stay up till midnight removing the beltloops. (Take my word for it, this is the voice of experience. You don't want to do that.) Most summer camps only require shorts, although not all, as I discovered If you're wearing shorts, I would recommend white ankle socks with your black shoes. Some guys wear black socks, I think they look geeky (although not as bad as if you wore them with white shoes, like my dad). Some guys wear tall socks, I think that looks too '80s.

You've got two ears and one mouth for a reason. Listen to everything, but don't offer excuses or suggestions unless specifically asked. Some of the things you hear from different observers may contradict each other or you may just disagree with what was said. That's ok. Just throw it out. But don't try to dispute with the observers. I'm sure you know that already. You don't want to be the guy who says "Yeah, but. . .". Observers will quickly stop trying to help you if you give the impression that you "know it all".

Some of the best moments I've had at camp have come when I've been able to spend some time off the court with one of the clinicians, talking about non-game situations. One year, a D1 official spent a good 45 minutes talking to a bunch of us about what it's like to arrange travel, juggle multiple conference assignors, and fit in a job all at the same time. It was very casual, but great to listen to. Last year, a D1 assignor sat with just me and talked to me about her officiating career and how hard it was to give that up in order to take the assigning job. If you get that chance, I would highly suggest that you take the time to hang out with the observers off the court.

On the court, work as hard as you can. You'll make mistakes and that's ok. In each game, pick one or two things that you were told in the previous game and work on those. You won't be able to "fix" everything in one game, so just work on one or two things per game. Since you'll have a notebook, you may even want to keep a brief game journal, so that the next day, you can look back at what you might want to work on.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.
__________________
Any NCAA rules and interpretations in this post are relevant for men's games only!
Reply With Quote