Officiating in the ABA, update

[crosscountry55]

Originally Posted by Rich1

For all you new people out ther -- there are always options for working on 3-man mechanics. Most weekends in your area there is a youth league / travel ball / AAU type tournament or set of games that use 2-man crews. Make some connections with experienced refs and volunteer to work 3-man with them. They will get the benefit of having a 3rd partner and you get the double benefit of getting to practice and getting suggestions for improvement. Its a lot easier to focus on learning the mechanics in a slow 5th grade girls game on the weekend than it is in a highly competitive varsity game on Friday night.

Agree. Just make sure it’s ok with the assignor of the paid crew first.



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[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Rich1

... there are always options for working on 3-man mechanics. Most weekends in your area there is a youth league / travel ball / AAU type tournament or set of games that use 2-man crews. Make some connections with experienced refs and volunteer to work 3-man with them. They will get the benefit of having a 3rd partner and you get the double benefit of getting to practice and getting suggestions for improvement.

I hate to be the party pooper, but if I were assigned quadruple header travel or recreation games on a Saturday afternoon, or an "off" weekday night, I'm not so sure that I would appreciate being asked to work the games with 100% perfect mechanics (I didn't say that I would say no).

In most games of this nature, especially in multiple games, guys here in my little corner of Connecticut will often use "modified" mechanics (switch on fouls only when convenient, report fouls from outside (way outside, like from under the basket) the reporting area, bounce the ball across the lane on throwins, doesn't matter who reports the timeouts (bumping), doesn't matter who inbounds the ball after intermissions and timeouts, closest spot after violations and fouls often means easiest spot to inbound with no movement across the basketline, no pregame official's conference, no pregame coaches and captains conference, no checking the scorebook, five minute halftimes, etc.).

Plus, guys (with many exceptions), that often work these games may not even know proper mechanics, and will forever be recreation and travel officials. We have experienced veteran guys on our local board who are only dues paying members to be able to claim a "certification" that allows them to work travel and recreation games, in some cases to help pay household bills (they may also want to avoid long distance travel, commuter rush hour traffic, have more control over their officiating schedule, and avoid the "politics" of being an active board member (attending mandatory meetings in a far away town on Sunday mornings (many are willing to pay fines not to attend), business casual dress to games, showing up early before games, or staying late after games, to evaluate officials)), and will block off every single day and night on Arbiter, never being assigned a middle school or high school game.

It's very often show up on time, hopefully in proper uniform, do the utmost best one can do on getting all the violations and fouls correct, do the utmost best one can do to keep the players and coaches under control, use "modified" mechanics, survive the games, clear the gym in time for the next series of games, get out, and get paid.

Certainly not a situation conducive to learning proper mechanics (although it's conducive to seeing lots of play situations), especially when multiple games may be scheduled an hour, or an hour and fifteen minutes, apart.

This is not meant to be a criticism, I was once such an official, it's just a fact around these parts. At one point I was working about a dozen recreation and travel games a week, plus my high school schedule, to put money into my kids' college fund, pay my mortgage, pay my car loan, and put groceries on the table. One often does what one has to do to keep one's head above water, and when one has a marketable skill, with the law of supply and demand in one's favor, go for it (and we don't get paid by the hour).

Teach science all day long. Coach basketball after school. Hustle to the other side of town to officiate a high school age recreation league tripleheader. Then asked to use perfect mechanics in a game where my partner probably doesn't want to use perfect mechanics, a game in which I'm not being evaluated by anyone, a game where the coaches, players, parents, fans, and the town's department of recreation director, are just pleased to have a varsity official in the gym instead of just a warm body?