View Single Post
  #9 (permalink)  
Old Mon Sep 14, 2009, 02:57pm
Camron Rust Camron Rust is offline
Official Forum Member
 
Join Date: Aug 1999
Location: In the offseason.
Posts: 12,260
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smitty View Post
My partner was insistent that white should get the ball back and I was trying to figure out a way, by rule, that we should give it to blue. But I couldn't. It was chaos. The blue bench was going ballistic and while he was being hammered by them (this wasn't the first inadvertent whistle he had in the game, so I didn't care that he was getting hammered), I quietly slid over to the camp directors and asked what we should do. They said give it to Blue. I didn't ask for an explanation, I just pulled my partner back from the fray and said we were giving it to Blue. That seemed to calm things down.

After the game I asked the camp director what his reasoning was to give it to blue. He said after thinking about it, by rule it should have been White ball, but based on the game situation, and the fact that I'd probably have had to toss the entire Blue coaching staff had we given it to White, giving it to blue was the right thing to do in that situation.

This is how we learn...

I'm still not sure we did the right thing or not. If it wasn't a camp, I probably would have been happy enough tossing the entire Blue coaching staff. And my partner along with them...
I think you did the right thing. I made an error in State Tourney 2 years ago that I'm thouroughly embarrased by. I fixed it the "right way" rather than the "rule" way. On my evaluation, I was criticized for making the error but not the way I fixed it.

There are many "right" solutions to odd situations that don't have rules support.

In your case, the rules were never written with the expectation of randomly inserted inadvertant whistles. Sure, there is a rules way that can be used to cover them, but that wasn't what that rule was really intended for either.
__________________
Owner/Developer of RefTown.com
Commissioner, Portland Basketball Officials Association

Last edited by Camron Rust; Mon Sep 14, 2009 at 04:36pm.
Reply With Quote