[OHBBREF]

Worked a varsity level summer camp last night – with an official whom – I swear to the almighty, did not make it across mid-court for 3 ½ of the 4 games we did. And then was sometimes behind the play in transition. Oh he missed the first quarter because he was late. We were working in the old Cager style gym at the high school - the floor is not even an 84 ft long.

When he was the trail he either had his hands on his hips or had the Jack Benny pose (for those of you too young: arm horizontal across chest supporting other elbow and with other hand on cheek!) This is a kid (maybe 25 yrs old) and a coach at the JV level, I have had his games in the summer as well as seen his JV games before mine and he can be a whiner.

I talked to him for 3 minutes between the first and second games about at least looking like he was showing some effort, maybe put some air in the whistle at least once a quarter to show everyone it did work since he probably only made two calls in the first game.
So in the second game he started using his whistle - He is a ball watcher, and will call your primary – your sideline and your end line, and then miss/pass on the murder right in front of him and really has poor rules knowledge with no game management skills - if a coach said something about a call - he would explain the call every time. Even if he didn’t make it!

When I realized how this was going to work - I just called my own game and made sure that nobody got killed in his primary, and hung him out to the coaches do with as they please.
Mind you these were horrendous games with lopsided scores – but physical – good games to practice some management skills. – The coaches were reasonably easy on him but gave him a sufficient amount of grief based on his performance, I got some of it too – but any that was directed toward him I redirected to him.

Afterward he asked me why I let him take all the heat from the coaches. I told him for 25% effort he should take 75% of the grief. I could pay him for his total too, if he wanted.

I guess that wasn’t kind but based on the fact that he is young – I only bring this up because we were talking about “Weak” or to phrase it more kindly so as not to offend any one, “effort/skills challenged” partners the other day and I thought it interesting that this would come up. Did I do him wrong?
This one has to be close to the worst I have ever worked with – thank god it didn’t count for anything –
Comments welcome!