Quote:
Originally posted by Andy
You are going to hear from both sides on this topic. Some people share the same opinion of your clinician. Identify the "star" players and if they get close to fouling out, or get a few fouls early , make sure that any fouls you call on them are "earned".
As far as I'm concerned, HS is not the NBA!
Officials should strive for consistancy. Contact that warrants a players first foul, warrants the same players fifth foul. This applies whether the player is the star or the last player off the bench.
The common wisdom spouted for the clinicians point of view is "you don't want to affect the game by fouling out the star unless it's a "solid" foul".
I say that if team B knows that star A has four fouls, they may try to run plays at him to try to get that fifth foul. If you are passing on contact by star A that you called earlier in the game, aren't you affecting the game by denying team B the chance to do what they are attempting?
Bottom line - work to become consistant, call the game.
PS - Good job with the "camp manners"!
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Junker, The advice given was for your protection, but what a load of cr*p to have it actually be policy at the HS level. Treating the star players differently than the others is exactly what a good official (imo) should NOT do. As Andy said, be consistent for all players throughout the game. Anything less than that is going to introduce bias into the game and has you, not the players, determining the outcome. If you are calling touch fouls throughout the game, then at the end, only the ones that are "earned", somebody got the shaft. You may get screamed at for calling the last foul on the stud, but the screams will be even louder if your "no-calls" at the end of the game had been called against the other team's players earlier. The last thing we need is to have our basketball officials cater to the superstars. Maybe in the NBA, which is there for the spectators, the rules don't have to apply equally to everyone. But what kind of lesson are we teaching our kids if HS basketball officials say it is ok for a star to get away with something that others can't?
All of your work, all your clinics, all your reading, and all your other efforts to improve yourself as an official, help you to become consistent. Why introduce something to mess that up? Please, don't do it.