Can an NCAA Basketball Official Work Both Sexes?

[ilyazhito]

I know that from other threads. I have also seen high school officials use the fist to start the clock and not stop the clock on out-of-bounds calls, in an attempt to emulate the NBA, but most officials use the approved mechanics, in my experience. I thought that some officials at the junior college level might work both men's and women's games, and forget to change their signals between the two. Maybe it is possible to work both sexes in JuCo, even if it is not possible at the higher levels.

[SC Official]

I've worked JUCO men's basketball and don't recall ever working with an official who didn't "count and chop" by the book. And even if someone did it the "unapproved" way, why should I care? That is between him and the assigner. All I can control is that I myself use mechanics that are acceptable for the respective assigner. And, yes, veterans often can get away with doing things that less experienced officials cannot. Really no different than a real job.

I've also never worked with a men's JUCO official who also works women's JUCO, as far as I am concerned. Again, even if I did, that is not my problem and is between him and the assigner. I can recall one small Christian college that utilized the same assigner for men's and women's basketball. That school didn't care if it got "men's officials" for its women's games or vice-versa; as long as they were competent, knew the rules and gave their best effort. So, there was occasionally some crossover there when the assigner was in a bind.

Maybe your sample size is just too small. Or you're worried about things that don't matter and that you can't control.

[SC Official]

Originally Posted by ilyazhito

Maybe it is possible to work both sexes in JuCo, even if it is not possible at the higher levels.

I can only speak for my area, and I can tell you that it would not be acceptable to the JUCO assigners here.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by ilyazhito

I created this thread so that officials on the fence could know some of the differences between men's and women's college basketball, from an officiating perspective, as well as to find out if it were possible to actually work both sexes. Now I know that working both sexes simultaneously is not possible, except maybe at the junior college level. Is this the reason why some JUCO men's officials use women's signals in men's games (counting with 1 hand and making a fist to start the clock, instead of the CCA Men's approved method of raising one hand, counting with the other, and chopping the raised hand)?

It really does not matter what someone wants to do, they often are not going to have much of a choice anyway. To work any college, someone has to hire you. Someone has to suggest that you are good enough or competent enough to work their games. People can try to do what they want in this arena, but if no one gives them the games, it does not matter.

JUCO is often assigned by people that assign other levels. We had a JUCO assignor in our area at one time that would get officials that worked Men's to work the Women's side in a pinch. That is the trend as many D1 conferences are using lower levels as their consortium when they train and hire officials all over several levels. The BIG has done this and has even supervisors of lower level conferences sharing their training and camps with the BIG. Well, the conferences eventually got rid of that supervisor and gave the assigning to a guy that already assigned college and NAIA ball for the Men's side and gave the other side to a Women's assignor who also already assigned some college, including D3 in the area. So it is great to have a desire, but there is clearly a standard to keep officials on one side or the other. Conferences want their games covered for sure, but they also want access to the same quality officials that other levels have, including JUCO. Many camps I went to the supervisor assigned all levels of college in over many states, so I doubt your area is entirely unique.

Peace

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

It really does not matter what someone wants to do, they often are not going to have much of a choice anyway. To work any college, someone has to hire you. Someone has to suggest that you are good enough or competent enough to work their games. People can try to do what they want in this arena, but if no one gives them the games, it does not matter.

JUCO is often assigned by people that assign other levels. We had a JUCO assignor in our area at one time that would get officials that worked Men's to work the Women's side in a pinch. That is the trend as many D1 conferences are using lower levels as their consortium when they train and hire officials all over several levels. The BIG has done this and has even supervisors of lower level conferences sharing their training and camps with the BIG. Well, the conferences eventually got rid of that supervisor and gave the assigning to a guy that already assigned college and NAIA ball for the Men's side and gave the other side to a Women's assignor who also already assigned some college, including D3 in the area. So it is great to have a desire, but there is clearly a standard to keep officials on one side or the other. Conferences want their games covered for sure, but they also want access to the same quality officials that other levels have, including JUCO. Many camps I went to the supervisor assigned all levels of college in over many states, so I doubt your area is entirely unique.

Peace

His area is the same. There is a guy who has several conferences (D2/D3/JuCo) and assigns both men's and women's. He has separate women's and men's staffs in all his conferences.

[SWMOzebra]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

We had a JUCO assignor in our area at one time that would get officials that worked Men's to work the Women's side in a pinch.

I have experienced the opposite, but mostly due to unforeseen circumstances. When bad weather or another issue causes someone on the men's crew to be late, I have seen women's officials (myself included) start a men's game and work until the late official arrives. This would definitely be the exception as opposed to the rule and I've probably only seen it 3 times in 10 years.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by SWMOzebra

I have experienced the opposite, but mostly due to unforeseen circumstances. When bad weather or another issue causes someone on the men's crew to be late, I have seen women's officials (myself included) start a men's game and work until the late official arrives. This would definitely be the exception as opposed to the rule and I've probably only seen it 3 times in 10 years.

When I am talking about needing officials in a pinch, I was talking mostly about the day of or day before situations where you cannot find a replacement to cover a game because of many factors. Most college games are assigned months in advance and changes, of course, happen because of the effects of other levels and officials might not be available. Weather is certainly one of those situations and often when a school plays a doubleheader with the women going first, there are times when an official is asked to show up that was not originally assigned.

The last women's game I did was probably 5 years ago where I was called to work a women's game by my supervisor of that conference because he was called by the school because the game was never listed. I lived 5 miles away from the school. I was called in and a couple of other officials were called in to help out that assignor/school.

Peace

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Raymond

His area is the same. There is a guy who has several conferences (D2/D3/JuCo) and assigns both men's and women's. He has separate women's and men's staffs in all his conferences.

So just more evidence he is not listening to people that actually know how this process works? Gotcha.

I think he and others do not realize how small the community is for college basketball officials.

I worked a camp in Pittsburgh this past spring and many of the officials were from Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia. It is the many of the same people I saw at a camp in Indianapolis a couple of weeks later.

Peace

[ilyazhito]

OK. Now I know that it isn't possible to work both sexes unless there is an emergency situation, whether for JUCO, DIII, DII, or DI. I've watched video of junior college and DIII women's college games, and I'm not impressed with the quality of play (it doesn't appear to me to be better than varsity level). Even though women's officials are good varsity officials, I would still be more interested in working men's ball. If things work out next year, I'll be trying out for Donnie Eppley, Tim Ebersole, and possibly Gregg Bennett on the men's side.

[JRutledge]

Well, at least you are narrowing it down. That has to mean something.

Peace

[SC Official]

Originally Posted by ilyazhito

OK. Now I know that it isn't possible to work both sexes unless there is an emergency situation, whether for JUCO, DIII, DII, or DI. I've watched video of junior college and DIII women's college games, and I'm not impressed with the quality of play (it doesn't appear to me to be better than varsity level). Even though women's officials are good varsity officials, I would still be more interested in working men's ball. If things work out next year, I'll be trying out for Donnie Eppley, Tim Ebersole, and possibly Gregg Bennett on the men's side.

I can't speak to women's D3/JUCO versus high school. But if you get hired for small college on the men's side, you're likely going to have quite a few games where you won't be impressed with the quality of play.

I hear so many officials complain about "bad basketball" from 5A varsity games to college games, boys/men and girls/women. I sometimes wonder what their standard for "good basketball" is.

And sometimes those "bad basketball" games are where you get better because often more whacky stuff happens in those kinds of games.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by SC Official

I can't speak to women's D3/JUCO versus high school. But if you get hired for small college on the men's side, you're likely going to have quite a few games where you won't be impressed with the quality of play.

Any college game on the Men's side at least has faster, bigger and stronger players. Even if you have a D1 player or two at the HS level, that is still a step up to work a JUCO (which are often D1 players but for some reason are not there) are much faster than any HS game. Again at the HS level, you might be dealing with one or two players that are even college players. In a college game, all those players were likely the better players of their team. Where you might have one or two players that can play at or above the rim consistently, you likely will have 10 players on the floor that could play at the rim even in a D3 game. I say all of this because you might not get the atmosphere as a high school game working lower level college basketball, but the athleticism is still better. Even if they play a little disjointed or not as organized, they still can get up and down that court or make plays you might go several games seeing in a high school setting. That is still an adjustment for someone that does not work those games at that level. And it takes some getting used to having all the things going on in your head compute in such a fast way.

Peace

[SC Official]

Not in response to anyone, but I know multiple women's college or former women's college officials that I'd much rather work high level boys HS games with than some of the men's/former men's officials I see. The idea I hear sometimes that "you can't go between genders because the games are too different" is ludicrous. We work doubleheaders in South Carolina, and the best officials (including the college officials) that I work with are equally adept at both genders. The only ones that are competent at girls but overmatched in boys are the old farts that can't run and should have retired 10 years ago.

Quite frankly, I appreciate when I work with crews that will enforce FOM and the automatics and not ignore them because "it didn't affect anything." And the women's officials are better at that.

[ilyazhito]

Agreed. That is why I wanted (initially) to be able to work both men's and women's college basketball, just as I would want to work both boys and girls high school basketball. Unfortunately, that is impossible, so I choose the men's side. Perhaps men's officials are starting to catch on as well and call freedom of movement as consistently as the women's officials.

Speaking of FOM and the automatics, I am vigilant about calling handchecking, illegal screens, fouls against cutters, etc. whenever I have the chance to work 3-person games (and even in 2-person games), and I will try to put these habits into practice should I get (charter school) varsity games this year.

Washington, DC has an interesting way of scheduling public school basketball. Just like South Carolina has boys/girls doubleheaders, DC public schools have the JV game first at 4 PM (only boys have JV teams, probably due to budget issues), the girls varsity game at 6 PM, and the boys varsity game at 8 PM, so both boys and girls play at the same site in succession. One of the officials from the JV game stays to work either the girls or boys varsity game.

For private school girls games, I have experienced something similar. Usually, my partner for the JV game would work the following varsity game with 2 other officials (including my evaluator, for games where I was being evaluated).

I doubt that this arrangement would catch on at the college level, even if assigners were open to having officials on games independent of gender, because of the physical demands of working a college game (40 minutes requires more stamina, focus, and energy than 32 minutes), whether with women or with men.

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by ilyazhito

...

I doubt that this arrangement would catch on at the college level, even if assigners were open to having officials on games independent of gender, because of the physical demands of working a college game (40 minutes requires more stamina, focus, and energy than 32 minutes), whether with women or with men.

Focus. Focus on you and what you can control. Quit worrying about the machinations of what supervisors can or cannot/will or will not do.