Crossing Whistles
 

Hello, I'm new here and signed up specifically to ask you more experienced officials how to handle a situation. Trying to learn, so I'll probably ask many questions unless I wear out my welcome.

Here is the situation that prompted me to come to you:

Officiating basketball at a middle school and there are two courts separated by a curtain. Our kids are playing and a whistle sounds loud and clear from the other court. Our kids all stumble to a stop, look at me and my partner. I just hold up my whistle as if to say, "That wasn't us" and the kids stumble to a start again.

This happened a few times during the game. Each time, the kids just slowed down like slow motion, and then kicked right back up when they realized the whistle was coming from the next court.

So other than being a distraction, it didn't affect the outcome of the game. The parents and coaches didn't make an issue of it, so we just played on.

Is there a better way to handle it?

Thank you in advance!

Nah, that's just the nature of the beast of multiple courts. If it causes an advantage, kill the play and make it right.

Welcome. And stick around!

This!

And what Freddy said, Welcome to the forum!

The kids eventually adjust. Your whistles need to be strong and loud

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If I can see anyone start to react I just say "not our court, keep playing". It won't take most teams long to figure out your whistle vs other court. Most teams that play at our wreck leagues in multiple court gyms do so several times per week so they get it taken care of pretty quick.

Never cross the streams!

Well played, Nevada. Well played.

Thank you for the advice! This is a great way to help pay for college, and it's been fun so far.
Still pretty intimidated, but having fun.

I had this happen recently while working in a gym with two courts. Normally I don't stop play, but the kid who had the ball took off for the basket before the others realized what was going on. As mentioned above, I felt that was an advantage, and I stopped the game and gave it back to the team who had it before the confusion.

My partner that day tried to give me a hard time about it...not sure he understood me when I explained it to him.

Our job is to ensure the rules are followed, and I'm sure your partner was fixated on the fact that the rules don't allow for what you did.

But the rules are there for a purpose, and your situation provided an advantage not intended by those rules. Good job.

Multiple court sites are probably one of the best examples of a good use of The God Rule (2-3).

Right. And thank you. Not sure the "founding fathers" had 8-court AAU tournaments in mind when they wrote the rules!!

I think you did the right thing.

If one team stops because of the other court's whistle and the other team doesn't, kill the play and proceed from Point-of-interruption.

Sometimes, you've just gotta officiate.

Welcome to the fraternity. Stick around and feel free to ask us questions, we're happy to help.

And just for future reference, it may be a good idea to pregame this with your coaches. Just to say if there is an inadvertent stoppage due to an unrelated whistle you will stop play and have the team that had the ball inbound it, or whatever. That way you are all on the same page and when the situation arises we aren't arguing about it. And the out of bounds option is better than just saying "play on" and somebody gets a free layup as a result. Now if the defense lets up and the ball carrier doesn't, then that's too bad.

Probably not a bad idea, but you'll still get an argument. Any time a whistle sounds and you don't stop play, and one team scores, the other will plead with you that they stopped due to the other whistle.

If I was working one of these games, I probably wouldn't plant that seed in the coaches minds before the game, but would deal with any situations as they came up.

Sure, if its the first game ever for a coach in a 8u team.

Otherwise, they know (or should know, and if they don't telling them about it isn't going to make any difference).

and, if they can't deal with your judgment about what's "fair" in this kind of situation (because it's rarely going to happen in any game that "matter" -- yeah, they all "matter" to someone), then they don't have to stick around for the rest of the game.

Also, YOU will be ready for this more in the future. Unless it's an outright fastbreak opportunity, you're going to realize right when that whistle begins (in most cases) that it's not coming from your court.

That's when you immediately growl (my preferred method with a whistle in mouth), "Play on!" before anybody can really relax.

Of course, this works best if you're trail and the ball is up high. But unless you're mid-shot or mid-drive, you're going to be able to head off stopping the game an awful lot, which, of course, you definitely want to do if you have 4 or 6 in a row.

And parents and players will typically understand.

All this talk about the players messing up, what about the officials?

Oh, how I love you MAYB events. Was traveling this last summer and knew an assigner running one of these and he'd asked if I'd do a few. Sure, why not? What could possibly go wrong. Sounded easy enough.

They turned a court into four courts with nothing to divide the court except table crew and players getting hit by stray balls.

Anyway, I had a game where I was the lead and the trail and the trail for another court were right next to each other. Heard a whistle so I looked up and of course my first thought was why doesn't this guy have his arm up. Bang, boom, boom, Bang right in front of me and I had to ask him for help on what happened. Had to hear it from the fans for the rest of the game. :p

Play was right in front of me with a great look. Only possible way to not see it was spacing out looking somewhere else.

When I've been in those situations, sometimes I'll suggest to my partner that we try to differentiate our whistle from what we are hearing on the other court(s). Something like a quick double tweet or something like that. It doesn't always work, but sometimes it does.

Us soccer folk carry whistles with different pitches for multi-field use . . . not so easy in hoops -- not to mention in soccer the other whistle is farther away . . . . muti-courts together strke me as nuts, but I guess that's how you get more $ running the tournament . . .