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Originally Posted by TD21
I just talked about this above but, "obvious" means there is no argument that it was a foul. No one can question what you called. Fouls that get called should all be this way. Sometimes we make calls that are less obvious than others and other times we make wrong calls. We can help ourselves by knowing the situations in games and making sure that we respond appropriately to them. In the situation I brought up, we have called a "marginal" 4th foul on one of the better players in the game. Now we make sure that his 5th is an "obvious" foul. If it isn't then I promise you you are going to get some heat from the coach who now has to sit his player because he just got two fouls called on him, that could have been fouls, or we could have passed on. It's called game management and it can help you as an official.
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The above post provides more questions than answers for me. Some fouls are more obvious than others, certainly. No one can question it when you call an "obvious" foul, you say. Hard to draw that line, even if it had meaning. Some calls are less obvious and some are wrong, you say. We need an obvious foul after a marginal foul, so what do we do after a "wrong call" on a foul? The part about the "better player" is the part I find disturbing. This indicates that you rank the players and call fouls differently from player to the next. If you are worried about "heat from the coach" I can't think of anything more likely to draw it than the scorer saying "That's his 4th foul." One side will say, "They're trying to get him out," while the other will say, "They're trying to protect him."
We have an infinite number of decisions to make in every game. If you draw all these lines and put all these restrictions on so many calls, it makes your job that much more difficult, and, in my opinion, opens you up to even more criticism.