Another suspension looming?

[johnny d]

Originally Posted by BryanV21

If I'm going to make a call like this, I'm going to first make sure I absolutely have to.

I mean, if there's a loophole in the rules that allows me to avoid having to make such a call, I'm going to use it. Strictly speaking, it may not be right, but I want to stay within the spirit of the game.

For example, in a game earlier this season, my partner allowed the wrong team to inbound the ball. Right after the inbounder threw the ball in I blew my whistle to correct the call.

Now, yes... I should have seen the error right away and corrected it. And yes, once the ball is inbounded it's too late. However, like I told my partners at the time, I "recognized the error before the ball was released by the inbounder and simply didn't hit my whistle soon enough" (note the quotation marks).

It was a stupid error by us officials, and if I could help it I wanted to avoid that mistake giving either team an unfair advantage.

Interesting philosophy. I hope it serves you well. Luckily for the officials on the game in the OP, they didn't need to employ this tactic, all they needed was some rules knowledge to realize a technical foul wasn't warranted in their situation because the celebration did not interfere with the other teams ability to start the next play/inbound the ball.

[BryanV21]

Originally Posted by johnny d

Interesting philosophy. I hope it serves you well. Luckily for the officials on the game in the OP, they didn't need to employ this tactic, all they needed was some rules knowledge to realize a technical foul wasn't warranted in their situation because the celebration did not interfere with the other teams ability to start the next play/inbound the ball.

Well, that was a rare time in which I had to skirt the rules. In fact, I can't think of another time I had to do such a thing. Maybe I should not do that at all, but I hear many officials (both here and elsewhere) talk about the keeping in the spirit of the game, which I take as making the game as fair as possible for both teams. As long as there's something in the rule book to back me up in doing so, I'm going to go with it.

I'd like to hear other's thoughts on this. If I should have allowed the wrong team to inbound the ball, I'll just deal with the repercussions.