Quote:
Originally posted by refnrev
drink,
I'm amazed that you haven't heard this "Ball, ball, ball" thing before. It's been going on in girls ball around here for years. Is it annoying? Yes. Do I like it? Not particularly? Is it illegal? Nope. Am I gonna T up a kid for it? I can't see that happening. It's a part of the game in many places. I've even heard that some younger boys are doing it now -- which makes me groan! Also, IMHO your tourney director's likening this to a yellow card for Unsporting Behavior in soccer is a pretty weak comparison.
|
I've heard it off and on for the 6 years I've been reffing. This was the first time that someone told me that it could be considered unsportsmanlike. I made the comparison to soccer myself, because in soccer, there is a specifically enumerated penalty - "Deliberate Verbal Tactics". I don't consider this a weak comparison, even though the two are completely different sports. I would think that in most sports, except maybe football, getting in an opponent's face and screaming at them, regardless of what is said, would be a foul or violation of some sort. Passing it off as communication to teammates is, to me, a rather weak excuse, especially considering a coach above admitted that the purpose was to distract the ball handler and make them throw a bad pass, along with informing their teammates that they had picked up their dribble. It seems to fall under gamesmanship to me - practices in sports which are technically not illegal, but attempt to get around the rules in an unfair or unsportsmanlike manner.
But, as I said above, the rules don't seem to support my feeling that this isn't part of the game. Except in the most extreme cases, I doubt I'd even warn someone about this being a problem, since I don't feel I have the support of the rules or of the officiating community at large for a call such as a T for this.
Then again, when the rules required excessive swinging of the elbows without contact to be a T, refs in general refused to call it, and the rules changed back to making it a violation. (This was in the past 2-3 years of rules changes, I believe)
Again, thanks for the opinions.