Warning: LONG POST AHEAD!
Third Scrimmage (last Saturday)
This was my former team, a 10 AM scrimmage. I got there a little after 9:30, and they were already playing. The new coach (who I've known for a while) came and told me he set the scrimmage up for 9, but the new AD screwed up and told the officials 10. It was a tri-scrimmage and they had been playing JV quarters for a while waiting for us to get there, with coaches officiating. As soon as a second guy showed, we jumped in, and by the time we finished the quarter, the other three officials were there.
It was going to be two courts, one V and one JV, so we decided to do three-man on the V court and two-man on the JV court. I did a couple JV quarters that went pretty well. I cycled over to the V court and did the a quarter with the two visiting schools first, and then another with my old team. I passed on two foul calls that in hindsight I probably should've gotten, and of course they were both players from my former team that got fouled. I think subconsciously I was so worried about appearing that I was favoring them that my brain took it a little too far.
I did another V quarter and two more JV before we were done. By the last two JV quarters I felt like I belonged out there. The guy I coached with came and he said there were times he forgot I was out there, so that's good.
As for seeing the former team, well, that was actually pretty cool. I heard them chattering when I jumped into that first quarter and one of the moms asked me if my ears were burning.
One of the kids told me she was still going to call me coach, which was cool. At the end, a couple of them asked me to hang around until after their post-scrimmage chat, and I got to catch up with most of them. I still have several open dates so I'll definitely go see them play a few times. It will be hard to remember not to cheer for them, because it is a good group of kids.
Added JH Scrimmage (Tuesday)
I got a JH Boys scrimmage back at my old school Tuesday afternoon. For some reason, there were just two of us assigned, and we worked 11 straight 10-minute running clock quarters (freshman teams and 8th-grade teams). My partner was a guy who used to coach as well and a big rival when I first started coaching in the late 90s, a very successful guy who jumped out of coaching around 1999 when he son was going into HS, so he could watch him play. He started officiating then, doing a lot of afternoon stuff and odd-day stuff. I've had him as a varsity official a few times and he is really good, so I was happy to work with him.
He let me decide what to do about foul switching, and I asked him to switch them all so I could build the habits. After 6 quarters, when they told they had 5 more, I told him I was okay with not switching the non-shooting fouls the rest of the way, which he agreed to but not without giving me a little grief. Then, with 2 quarters left, there was a shooting foul and the ball bounced away and long story short, it made a lot of sense not to switch that
one so I gave him the "stay there" sign. Of course, he decided that this was the funniest thing ever, me not even wanting to switch shooting fouls after almost two hours!
In the whole stretch, I felt really good about it all, save one play. I was the L administering a second FT to white. An red player came in early, on the release. I needed a split-second to decide if this was the fist or the whistle. I figured it out, thought I saw the shot miss, and hit the whistle as the ball was falling into the hands of a red player. But for some reason, out of the corner of my eye, something in my brain told me the ball went in. So I asked Tom if it the shot was made or missed. When he told me it was missed, this confused me and I decided I had an inadvertant whistle with red possession, so a red throw-in. I did this too quickly and by the time we were down at the other end, I realized I screwed up.
Then, I compounded the mistake by thinking about this for the next couple minutes. I got in a daze and was not as focused as I should've been. This is something I'm going to have to work on; letting the mistakes go and moving on to the next play.
First Game!
Last night was my first real game, in the 5th/6th grade boys' travel league. About half my games are in this league, either boys or girls. I had the honor of working with the official I respect the most, a guy who I've had in men's rec league games but not in HS, as I think he is at a top boys' varsity game every game night. Lenny is 31 years in, and was part of the only Lancaster County crew ever to officiate a state title game. (Something in the system is broken when that is the case, but that's another story.)
It turns out he lives only a couple miles from the school we were at, and although he doesn't do many in this league, he likes to do games at this nearby school. That was good news for me, because it was really an honor. I watched how he instructed the timer and scorer, which helped me. He let me toss, which was cool.
One funny thing early on: I was in the bathroom before the game, and one coach and one player came in so the coach could give the player his shirt. I guess the kid forgot his and the coach had a same-color shirt with a number on it. He was a big kid so it worked out. Then, middle of the first quarter, the big kid is parked in the lane. In one of my scrimmages, I worked with a 25-year guy who said he hadn't called three seconds in 7 years, and that you can pretty much always talk a kid out of the lane. So, anyway I start saying "42, get out of the lane." Of course, he has no idea I'm talking to him because he doesn't know what number is on his shirt. I try again, but by now the coach who is right next to Lenny is squawking about it as well. It must be 7 or 8 seconds by now, so Lenny calls it. From the trail. Ugh. I felt bad, thinking he must think I'm a schmuck who won't call it. But when we got to talk he told me that he heard me talking with the kid and that it was good, but the coach was flipping out and he was in there a long time, so he had to call it.
The game nearly got cracked open. It was 22-9 early in the third when I saw Lenny give his first ever six-men-on-the-floor T. I guess the coach told his kid to go in, and he just sprinted straight out into the middle of the play. There was nothing we could do. Of course, the home team hits the FTs and scores on the ensuing possession, which energizes them. They get the margin down to six and it stays there for a while until the visitors get it back to ten with two minutes left. The visitors try to steal a couple extra minutes for their reserves, but they start cracking from the pressure and next thing you know it is a five-point game with 30 seconds left. It didn't get any closer however and I got my first game under my belt.
Lenny had a lot of positive feedback for me. I'm pretty loud, which I've gotten some praise for. He told me that he liked how I was selling everything and that it was the key.