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

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by SD Referee

I don't think any experienced official can honestly say that working 3 man is not better for everybody vs 2 man.

If you haven't worked it, you really shouldn't have an opinion.

Just my opinion

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.

[JRutledge]

The people that struggled with 3-person were the veterans. The younger officials that actually cared about what they were doing often were the officials that understood 3-person better. You do not need perfect officials to work 3-person if you teach the basics of 3-person. And if they have veteran partners, we can deal with the other aspects of the game that make the game go smoothly. Not all officials get good when they worked 10 years of basketball. Some are good a couple years in. Yes, you might need more officials, but that does not mean the officials that worked 2-person were that great. I remember when I would watch officials work with only 2 at varsity games. There were guys who could not run, would not get into position and certainly not be in able to keep up even in a 3-person assignment in today's game. So I am not sure what point he was making. Using his old ass experience as an official that worked 2-person in the 80s and 90s does not have much to do with today. Again, a totally different game is played and I hardly see official do anything right in 2 person games I watch now with the way the game is played.

Peace

[Rich]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

The people that struggled with 3-person were the veterans. The younger officials that actually cared about what they were doing often were the officials that understood 3-person better. You do not need perfect officials to work 3-person if you teach the basics of 3-person. And if they have veteran partners, we can deal with the other aspects of the game that make the game go smoothly. Not all officials get good when they worked 10 years of basketball. Some are good a couple years in. Yes, you might need more officials, but that does not mean the officials that worked 2-person were that great. I remember when I would watch officials work with only 2 at varsity games. There were guys who could not run, would not get into position and certainly not be in able to keep up even in a 3-person assignment in today's game. So I am not sure what point he was making. Using his old ass experience as an official that worked 2-person in the 80s and 90s does not have much to do with today. Again, a totally different game is played and I hardly see official do anything right in 2 person games I watch now with the way the game is played.



Peace

Exactly. The old guys were mostly the ones bitching about 3-person and were terrible at it.

So few of the people I watch in JV games work 2-person right. When I filled in for an injured official a few years ago and went ballside as the lead, it completely confused my partner. He'd *never* seen anyone do that!

Come to think of it, few V officials here did that in 2- person games.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

The people that struggled with 3-person were the veterans.

Agree. For the few three person games that we do, veterans seem to struggle more than the younger guys, of course there are exceptions with both age groups. It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks.

[Raymond]

A GOOD 2-person veteran official will not look horribly out of place when first starting out in 3-man. They will at least know to call obvious fouls and violations in whatever area they are looking at (primary or straying to secondary) and they will look for cues from their partners to see where they should rotating to. The rest is either window dressing or can be compensated for by the other 2 crew members. An official who looks completely out of place in 3-man, most likely looks that way in 2-man also.

I still believe brand new beginners need to be taught 2-man exclusively if that's all that's going to be working in their first season. Teach them 3-man after their first season. The ones who want to be good will seek out the training necessary in the off-season.

JMHO

[ilyazhito]

I agree with teaching 3-man after the first year. This would allow the newer officials to see the connections between 2 and 3-person officiating (the 2-person Trail position is more similar to the Center position of a 3-person crew than to its 3-person namesake), get familiar with the 3-person system (with possible reinforcement in non-scholastic leagues and/or subvarsity games), and be considered as varsity alternate officials. 3rd years might then start seeing a limited varsity schedule (with more assignments depending on ability and availability), and thus there will be a pipeline of qualified 3-person officials to supplement and eventually replace the veterans.

ODog, what is the situation like in MA when it comes to 3-person? I know that MA uses 3-person in the playoffs, that some varsity games are 2-person, and that the MIAA handbook addresses 3-person game fees by saying they should be no more than 85% of the 2-person fee. Are 3-person games between bigger schools, private school teams, or are they randomly spread across the board? Is it different in different boards (Board 27 doing more 3-person games than Board 54)?

[BayStateRef]

There is very little 3-person in Mass. A couple of leagues use 3 in February as a prep for the tourney. I just heard from a partner (but have not confirmed) that one league is using 3-person crews for all varsity games this season for both boys and girls. Private schools use only 2 as well.

IAABO boards do not assign, so it doesn’t matter to which board you belong — only which leagues you work.

Originally Posted by ilyazhito

what is the situation like in MA when it comes to 3-person?

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by ilyazhito

I agree with teaching 3-man after the first year. This would allow the newer officials to see the connections between 2 and 3-person officiating (the 2-person Trail position is more similar to the Center position of a 3-person crew than to its 3-person namesake), get familiar with the 3-person system (with possible reinforcement in non-scholastic leagues and/or subvarsity games), and be considered as varsity alternate officials. 3rd years might then start seeing a limited varsity schedule (with more assignments depending on ability and availability), and thus there will be a pipeline of qualified 3-person officials to supplement and eventually replace the veterans.

It is up to you to decide what you want to know as an official. It is not up to anyone to require you to learn anything. There are plenty of resources to learn any mechanics system you wish. I did not wait until anything when I started in the 90s to learn 3-person. I went to camps, read books and watched officials work. I picked it up very early.

Peace

[ilyazhito]

I was referring to what Raymond said earlier. Raymond: "I still believe brand new beginners need to be taught 2-man exclusively if that's all that's going to be working in their first season. Teach them 3-man after their first season." If associations were to teach 3-person on a consistent basis starting with each official's second year, it would make the transition to the varsity level and/or playoffs easier, simply because the official in question would have been familiar with 3-person mechanics from either the classroom sessions, on-court practice, or both. This might also be the way to get 2-person areas to transition to 3-person, by making the membership as a whole knowledgeable enough in 3-person mechanics to mitigate the growing pains that Camron alluded to.

[ODog]

Originally Posted by ilyazhito

ODog, what is the situation like in MA when it comes to 3-person? I know that MA uses 3-person in the playoffs, that some varsity games are 2-person, and that the MIAA handbook addresses 3-person game fees by saying they should be no more than 85% of the 2-person fee. Are 3-person games between bigger schools, private school teams, or are they randomly spread across the board? Is it different in different boards (Board 27 doing more 3-person games than Board 54)?

Contrary to what BayStateRef said, there is plenty of 3-person in Mass., at least in my area. More than 60 percent of my games are 3-whistle. Maybe more than 70 percent. Some schools use exclusively three all season, while some only use it for 3-4 home games just as a primer in the event their teams make the tourney. But all schools play some 3-whistle games. Doesn't matter if it's large inner city boys programs or terrible small-school girls programs.

It's very prevalent in our area, and moreso every year. And all officials get the full fee. The 85-percent-fee thing went out the window by vote of our county ADs a few years ago. Two- or three-whistle, doesn't matter: You get $84.

But it does seem to depend on where you live in the state, as neighboring counties, some of whose teams play in the same leagues as our teams, don't pay for three officials as often and don't pay full fee when they do.

[ilyazhito]

Originally Posted by ODog

Contrary to what BayStateRef said, there is plenty of 3-person in Mass., at least in my area. More than 60 percent of my games are 3-whistle. Maybe more than 70 percent. Some schools use exclusively three all season, while some only use it for 3-4 home games just as a primer in the event their teams make the tourney. But all schools play some 3-whistle games. Doesn't matter if it's large inner city boys programs or terrible small-school girls programs.

It's very prevalent in our area, and moreso every year. And all officials get the full fee. The 85-percent-fee thing went out the window by vote of our county ADs a few years ago. Two- or three-whistle, doesn't matter: You get $84.

But it does seem to depend on where you live in the state, as neighboring counties, some of whose teams play in the same leagues as our teams, don't pay for three officials as often and don't pay full fee when they do.

That's interesting. Where in MA do you call games? I'm curious, because Bay State Ref's profile says that he's in the Boston area. Bay State said that there is no relationship between what IAABO board you are in and the leagues you work. Is that true?

What would it take to get 3-person implemented universally at the varsity level in MA? Timewise, I say it would happen in the next decade.

[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

[#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.