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Originally Posted by tomegun
His "friend" works for the Big Ten but lives on the east coast.
Rut, I have a question that is totally off topic and I hope not too general for an answer. I have lived on the west coast (sort of) and the east coast. Although many (on the west coast) would like to deny it, there is a different brand of basketball played between the coasts. Out west more fouls are called that would be considered "game interupters" (JR  ) on the east coast. More emphasis is placed on playing through contact on the east coast. My question is this, how would you say the midwest compares to this? I'm originally from the midwest, but I have no experience as an official in that part of the country and this conversation just made me curious. |
I cannot speak for the entire Midwest. I can only speak for the parts that I have worked. I started officiating in West Central Illinois where most of the schools are smaller and the talent is not of a D1 level. I moved to the Chicago land area back in 1999 and started working games full time up here in 2000-2001. Where I started in West Central Illinois it is common place for little contact to be called a foul. That is what is normally expected when I work games in this area and what is expected from teams that come from that area. When I started working in Chicago, I had to adjust big time. The talent was better across the board and some of the countries best players come from this area or the surrounding suburbs. Up here they expect much more contact and want you to wait. Also there are many more college officials and officials that work at the D1 level or have pro backgrounds or aspirations. In other words what you watch in the Big Ten is a very good example of what is expected. They expect a lot of contact in certain circumstances and it is not uncommon to be praised for a no-call on a lot of contact. When I read this board it is very clear the expectations are very different around the country. And in conversations I had with officials over the country when I attended a D1 camp this summer, it was clear that the expectations of HS officials varied big time. I even worked a tournament this Thanksgiving where we had teams from Arizona, Texas, Indiana and Illinois and the complaints about calls were vastly different from the teams. The 2 Texas teams hardly complained about the calls we did not make, one of the coaches apologized for complaining about a couple of calls when he realized we were consistent. The Arizona coach did nothing but complain and the Indiana coach complained the most of all. So there were obviously difference in expectations from the different teams and areas they were from. Now why that is I do not completely know. I can just come to a reasonable conclusion the officials do not call the same things in all these places.
Peace