[just another ref]

Originally Posted by Corndog89

From the original OP: "As soon as the ball bounces in the backcourt, my partner blows his whistle and calls an over and back violation on White.There's not a White team player within 10 feet of the ball. When I go over and ask what he's doing, he has the deer in the headlights look. He realizes he's kicked it, but now what do we do? Do we give it to White since they were the team in control, even though they could not have touched the ball without violating? What would you do?"


Why do we automatically assume that by rule we have an accidental or inadvertant whistle? Sounds like we just have a really, really bad call. The partner, who BTW was trail and thus it was his call to make (or in this case, blow) called a violation...he got it wrong, but he called a violation nonetheless. What if A1 were standing holding the ball and partner whistled him for a traveling violation? Would you rule an accidental or inadvertant whistle just because he made an incredibly bad travel violation call? What if partner called a foul and you and everyone else in the gym saw that the "fouler" was at least 5 feet away from the fouled player and there was absolutely, positively no way there was a foul? Would you assume an accidental or inadvertant whistle and step in and call it such because your partner is an idiot? Would you intervene on every "bad" call you determine your partner made by using the accidental or inadvertant whistle defense? And don't tell me you've never said to yourself after a horrible call by a partner, "Self, dude just made a horrible call!" and then proceeded to enforce his crappy call. Seems in this OP our crew would just have to live with this particularly horrible call. He (and probably me since he seems pretty clueless) explain it to the Blue coach, give the ball to Blue OOB, and we move on. Afterward, partner and I, along with the camp staff, have a long discussion on how to officiate.

And please note, I'm not disputing the great and accurate discussions on how to correctly administer an accidental or inadvertant whistle. And I'm not taking the chickensh!t route by hiding behind "not-wanting-to-follow-the-rules-just-so-we-can-do-the-easy/right-thing-by-the-Blue-team-and-avoid-personal-pain-and-responsibility-in-the-process" that so many of you will automatically accuse me of...there's going to be pain regardless, anyway. I'm just not automatically assuming this is an accidental or inadvertant whistle.

Heard something similar........oh, yeah.

Originally Posted by just another ref

He called a violation. No matter how wrong this call is, it would not be as wrong as giving the ball back to white.

I agree with your take, and if I understood correctly, Camron does also.

But that seems to be all of us.