[jkumpire]

Originally Posted by Scrapper1

This method was suggested to me also, but to be honest, it doesn't work for me. I don't know why. I'm sure it's mental deficiency on my part. What I do instead is memorize two sets of opposite players on each team. If both of those opposites are where they should be, then the other two players must be where they're supposed to be, too.

The drawback of my method is that it can get tough if there are a lot of subs. But it's easier for me than the setter method.

Scrapper,

I know what you are saying, but the problem is that the overlaps you see most often will include the setter. The setter is the person the whole offense run through, and it gets easy to find them. It also is the person more than likely who will be out of alignment, because of how they need to be in a certain position to run the offense.

Let me throw and idea out at you, and others can chime in. I hope I am not condescending here, if I am I apologize. I don't know if you use a wheel or not. If you don't, try it. Then during warmups, look over both teams and find out who the setter(s) is(are). Then mark the setter on your wheel. It will make the process much easier of working off the setter and his/her opposite.

You will also find that it won't take long to figure out the sub pattern of each team. Once you have that down, you will know who will replace who and why. If #24 is an OH and #42 is a 5'3" serve receive guy, then you will pick up real quick when they will sub for each other, and keeping the service order/alignment for them will be easy.

Also, I found that some off-season study was a great help. Learn at least a little about the major offensive sets teams use, the 4-2, 5-1, and 6-2. Once you start to understand what a team is trying to do, finding the setter and who is doing what is a lot easier to do. To me, this is one place where great officials in other sports become great VB officials, A lot of guys who do other sports and just do VB for some extra $$ (you know who you are), don't take the time to get familiar with the strategy/tactics of the game. Officials that do other sports have an intuitive grasp of what is going on in front of them and it makes the game easier to call. The same holds true for VB, it is just that a new official w/o a lot of playing experience has a lot of study to do to get the knowledge base needed to be a great VB official.