No Surprises

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Freddy

I'M NOT GOING TO GET SURPRISED . . .

3) ... by the end of a period.

Many veterans on my local board were trained by an outstanding official who had a "by the book" philosophy that if there wasn't an "official" (NFHS, or IAABO) signal an official could give to another official to watch for the end of a period, that we shouldn't use "any" signal to signal such. His philosophy also said that good officials should always know when one was getting close to the end of the period, again claiming that no such signal, official, or unofficial, was needed.

He retired several years ago, and many of our veterans, unfortunately, still follow his philosophy. We still haven't come up with an accepted signal. Some will point to the clock, or hold up one finger, others will tap their heads, or point to their wrist, or point to the ceiling making a clockwise signal. Many, especially veterans, will do nothing.

Even though it's in my pregame to help each other out with this situation, I am still surprised by the buzzer once, or twice, a season, no matter how hard I try to pay attention to the clock.