I can understand why many coaches don't like 3 officials in many circumstances. Personally, I have officiated almost exclusively 3 whistle coverage the past 5 seasons (HS and College). Many officials "think" they know the coverage when they really don't. One of our observers taped several HS games in our area and there were 3 sets of eyes "on ball" for most of the game. People that don't do it enough, tend to follow the ball far to long IMHO.
For example, last night I worked a game with 2 veteran officials and after the game the losing (home team) coach came in and talked to us. In the 3 years his conference has had 3 officials, he had never seen so many off ball calls. He mentioned that his players are bad about grabbing jerseys, pushing through screens, etc... He also said he hasn't addressed it in practice because it doesn't get seen in games usually. ~ I'm not saying we are that good or had a perfect game, but the coaches are learning exactly what we are supposed to be looking at and what we aren't supposed to be looking at.
|