[Time2Ref]

Sorry. I just thought I was going to read about some rules interpretation. You setup the situation. Then Wham! It just seemed like a punchline. I couldn't stop laughing.

I have been watching basketball for longer than I would like to mention. I have watched my kids play sports. I have coached my kids teams. I have just started to learn officiating. (I can't seem to start a sentence with anything but I...this can't turn out good).

My mentor has me go watch him officiate. It was the hardest thing to do at first. I wanted to watch the games as a fan. I wanted to root for the underdog(teams I didn't even care about) I wanted to tell the coaches when to call TO's. And yes, I had problems keeping my mouth shut when there was a bad call. (at least I didn't scream).

But I have learned to keep my mouth shut. Or even make ugly faces.

He officiated a game at the deaf school. It was eerie. Not only did the deaf players NOT talk, the other team didn't talk. Nobody in the gym said anything. Sitting in the stands, I said something to myself about the AP arrow being wrong. The couple in front of my turned around and let me know that the arrow was correct and told me why. (in a nice way, but) I felt a little embarassed. People could talk, they just didn't. Strange.

Another time, his partner didn't show up. He officiated the first game by himself. Poor guy. You think an official can't see everything when there is two or three of them? He tried to play lead on both sides. He quickly learned that when you're the only one out there, you are ALWAYS the trail. No bump and run. Just run. He actually asked me to stand by one of the endlines and help him out on OOB. I politely declined. If I only learned one thing, I learned to keep my mouth shut. Actually, the crowd and coaches went pretty easy on him. (But those girls did stretch the court out when the ball was under the basket).

Another time, he had a JV boys game. I sat right behind the home team bench. First half, He was the lead (became the trail after the home team rebounded) A1 gets trapped in the corner, right in front of the Home team bench (and I was seeing what the coach was seeing). With my mentor OOB on the endline, A1 had his back to the endline. B1 and B2 where hacking away at A1's arm until the ball finally came loose. Then in the scramble, the ball went OOB, off of A1. The coach about blew his top. I thought, man that was a bad call. A1 got robbed. BUT, I didn't say anything. I made a note on my clipboard and I was going to mention it to him later. But the more I thought about it, I realized that unless he could see through that kid's body, there was no way that he could have seen the hack's. Even though it was "as plain as day" to me and the home team bench. I learned two things that night. 1) The ref can only call what he sees. 2) It is important to place yourself so that you can see the play.

I have always loved basketball. But it is a totally different game when you are watching the officials instead of the game. You can learn a lot from watching the officials instead of getting caught up in the game as a fan. But, the first that you have to learn is: Keep your mouth shut.

See how you felt when you thought we were making fun of you. Do you relize now how the ref felt when you were making fun of him?

Did you learn anything from your experience?

[Edited by Time2Ref on Feb 14th, 2006 at 08:13 AM]