Rich's area - Is it time to drop the 3-man officiating crew?

[SCalScoreKeeper]

Crosscountry,
The leagues that use it here are our area's stronger public school leagues. Our shot clock operator pool is pretty strong out here. Most of the experienced ones go thru at least half a season without a CE involving the clock. The most common one I've seen is inadvertent reset but they're able to correct pretty quickly using recall or they happened to catch a glance of where it was at prior to reset.

[crosscountry55]

Originally Posted by SCalScoreKeeper

Crosscountry,

The leagues that use it here are our area's stronger public school leagues. Our shot clock operator pool is pretty strong out here. Most of the experienced ones go thru at least half a season without a CE involving the clock. The most common one I've seen is inadvertent reset but they're able to correct pretty quickly using recall or they happened to catch a glance of where it was at prior to reset.

I’m not saying your shot clock operators are necessarily good or bad. But they are human, and having that third official dramatically reduces P-subB (probability of bufoonery). Furthermore, at the end of the day, the officials are responsible for SC decisions, not clock operators. All the more reason that games with 2-person crews and shot clocks are really a lot to ask of a crew. I would know; I’m living that headache in RI this year.

I’m just surprised that such a powerhouse state as CA isn’t universally using 3-person by now. Got it, looks like the big leagues in the LA area are. But what about the smaller leagues and other sections? For example, isn’t most of the San Diego section still 2-person? San Diego is the eighth largest metro area in the country!


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[SD Referee]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

Some of his points were valid....moving to 3 means you need 50% more people to cover the same number of games or you need the same people go give 50% more of their time.

A lot of people can't give up 50% more time, so you ultimately need more people. Assuming you normally use the "best" officials with 2-person crews, that means the ones you need to add come from the next tier down, adding people that were previously working JV games to now do Varsity games. You have more officials on games that are not ready for those games. You can cover select games with an experienced crew, but not all, may not even most games.

It is certainly better at the top, but the big question is whether the 3-person system, across all games, overcomes the effect of adding a generally less capable official to most crews. When we switched to 3-person, who that was was patently obvious to anyone who had any idea of what was going on on the court. They tended to not know where to go and the call selection was just not the same. We knew that there would be growing pains for the first few years as many had to learn 3-person...most 3-person crews had 1 person with 3-person experience (typically with a college background), 1 that was familiar to some degree, and 1 that had no idea. We hoped that the benefit of the 3-person format would eventually overcome the hurdles. While 3-person is certainly better when you have 3 top-level officials, the jury is still out as to whether it is a net win across the board when you have a limited pool to draw from.

Our transition from 2 man to 3 man went much more smoothly. There were growing pains of course, but for the most part it went much more smoothly than some of you guys are describing. Not sure why that would be.

[ilyazhito]

Was there additional training given in SD when the state went to 3-person, or did most scholastic officials already have 3-person experience (camps, playoffs, college, or intramural games) at the time of the transition?

I would expect some sort of state camps or other resources from the SDHSAA specific to 3-person when that change was introduced, similar to the MSHSL putting out a video and document about the new restricted area rule that will apply this year.

How did associations transition to 3-person? Did they use JV officials more on varsity, promote more people from the JV level, or double-schedule varsity officials on both JV and varsity games to get 3-person crews?

[MattReferee]

Here in South Texas we do both 2&3 man crew depending on 1A,2A etc...
I love 3man as I live by the Sayin 3sets if eyes ARE ALWAYS better then 2 sets..
And as long as you have a strong pregame with co-officals as to primary, consistency and court awareness you should be good🤷*♂️ Why would anyone want 2man over 3 is totally crazy.i could see it for a small 1Aor 2A But 3A. And up Varsity needs 3 man
Long Live The 3 Man Crew

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by ilyazhito

Was there additional training given in SD when the state went to 3-person, or did most scholastic officials already have 3-person experience (camps, playoffs, college, or intramural games) at the time of the transition?
....

These are the type of questions no one knows the answer to. But most HS officials I have encountered do not have college or camp experience. They are just guys/gals who decided to officiate and their bodies are needed to fill games.

You have grave misconceptions about the amount of standardized training that occurs at the HS level.

[#olderthanilook]

Originally Posted by MattReferee

Here in South Texas we do both 2&3 man crew depending on 1A,2A etc...
I love 3man as I live by the Sayin 3sets if eyes ARE ALWAYS better then 2 sets..
And as long as you have a strong pregame with co-officals as to primary, consistency and court awareness you should be good🤷*♂️ Why would anyone want 2man over 3 is totally crazy.i could see it for a small 1Aor 2A But 3A. And up Varsity needs 3 man
Long Live The 3 Man Crew

Couldn't agree more - 3 sets of eyes are always better than 2. However, I just can't see how 2 man crews are acceptable for class 1 or 2 games. Varsity games, at all classes imo, are best served using 3 man crews. Just too much going on off ball.

[Rich]

Originally Posted by Raymond

These are the type of questions no one knows the answer to. But most HS officials I have encountered do not have college or camp experience. They are just guys/gals who decided to officiate and their bodies are needed to fill games.

You have grave misconceptions about the amount of standardize training that occurs at the HS level.

With a lot of areas of our state using set crews that self form, there are a lot of bad habits and crew specific officiating going on in games all over the place.

I have observed more games this season now that I'm injured and it amazes me how many officials ball watch and how many simply call all over the floor. Shouldn't surprise me, but it still does.

[crosscountry55]

Originally Posted by Rich

I have observed more games this season now that I'm injured and it amazes me how many officials ball watch and how many simply call all over the floor. Shouldn't surprise me, but it still does.

You might not want to share that observation with the BB editor at the Janesville Gazette.



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[Rich]

Originally Posted by crosscountry55

You might not want to share that observation with the BB editor at the Janesville Gazette.



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The solution is more education and training, not going back to 2-person crews. That choice would be number 36 on a list of 36 choices. #35 is "getting hit by a car."

[ilyazhito]

Raymond, Rich, you're exactly right. There is not enough systematic training at the high school level. Some states make camp attendance a playoff requirement, but it appears that not enough officials go to camp even then. If local associations are able to put on camps and on court training sessions, either on their own or with state support, the quality of officiating will increase, because officials will have more practice. As of now, most officials only get game experience, so if all their games are 2-person (MS, Subvarsity, and rec games for non-varsity officials), how will they learn enough 3-person to become competent enough to do varsity games? If states require camp attendance every year (whether the local association, HS at the state level, an independent teaching camp, or a college camp), and provide some source of scholarships/support local association camps, more officials will be better trained, and we won't see a's extreme of a drop-off from varsity officials who know 3-person to newer varsity officials and JV officials who don't.

[SC Official]

Originally Posted by Rich

With a lot of areas of our state using set crews that self form, there are a lot of bad habits and crew specific officiating going on in games all over the place.

I have observed more games this season now that I'm injured and it amazes me how many officials ball watch and how many simply call all over the floor. Shouldn't surprise me, but it still does.

I’m glad SC is not a “crew state.” I can only imagine the bad habits and lackadaisical officiating that goes on when you work with the same people every night.

And the writer of this article implies that having 2-person crews where the guys have worked together for a long time is somehow better than a 3-person crew. If you’re a good official you can work with anyone on a given night; you shouldn’t need your “usual crewmates.”

[Rich]

Originally Posted by SC Official

I’m glad SC is not a “crew state.” I can only imagine the bad habits and lackadaisical officiating that goes on when you work with the same people every night.

And the writer of this article implies that having 2-person crews where the guys have worked together for a long time is somehow better than a 3-person crew. If you’re a good official you can work with anyone on a given night; you shouldn’t need your “usual crewmates.”

I like it both ways. Of course, my usual crew goes to camps and teaches at them and tries very hard to do things the right way. But I'm just as happy working with 2 people I've never met before.

[SC Official]

Originally Posted by ilyazhito

Raymond, Rich, you're exactly right. There is not enough systematic training at the high school level. Some states make camp attendance a playoff requirement, but it appears that not enough officials go to camp even then. If local associations are able to put on camps and on court training sessions, either on their own or with state support, the quality of officiating will increase, because officials will have more practice. As of now, most officials only get game experience, so if all their games are 2-person (MS, Subvarsity, and rec games for non-varsity officials), how will they learn enough 3-person to become competent enough to do varsity games? If states require camp attendance every year (whether the local association, HS at the state level, an independent teaching camp, or a college camp), and provide some source of scholarships/support local association camps, more officials will be better trained, and we won't see a's extreme of a drop-off from varsity officials who know 3-person to newer varsity officials and JV officials who don't.

Sounds lovely, but there are plenty of officials who would give it up altogether rather than going to camp every year. You cannot force officials to be more invested in this job than they want to be. You can run them off, but that doesn’t help the shortage at all. We already sacrifice a lot of time and money. A lot of people are not going to spend more time and money going to camps over the summer, being away from work and family without making any money. We only get paid for the games we work; at some point the unpaid time devoted to officiating becomes too much.

And what about college officials? Should they have to go to a high school camp annually? You’d have an uprising from the high school guys unless the requirements were the same for the college officials working high school, and you’d have college guys quitting left and right before going to a high school camp. And I wouldn’t really blame them.

We have recently started requiring camp attendance once every three years in SC, and even with that minimal requirement we have had many people quit. It might seem minimal to me, but the bottom line is officials aren’t willing to do it.

[ilyazhito]

If the college guys teach at a high school camp, it would count for purposes of attendance. This way, college guys would participate in high school camps as high school officials do, just in a different capacity.

I guess there is a reason that HS camp fees are lower than college camp fees ($50 for varsity camps in GA and SC, $100 for post-season credit camps in GA), so that HS officials wouldn't have to pay too much for camp.

However, what other solutions would work if yearly training camps are not the answer? College officials do yearly camps because it is a conference requirement, and they are invested in the process, but what systematic training solution can get HS officials to a higher level of competence that would increase the potential varsity and/or playoff pools of officials? The $64,000 question still remains how to prepare subversion officials with all (or mostly) 2-person experience for 3-person games at the varsity level.