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

https://www.gazettextra.com/sports/h...cGEyDJKr9VKY5E

My goodness, sometimes the amount of stupidity even from fanboys like this writer astounds me.

Yes, two person is going to make it better. LOL!!!!

Peace

The two reader's comments below the write-up are spot on.

Ok, I'll be objective here. There's a little fanboy in the article, but there's some fair points as well. I still disagree on the whole:

1. If this were only a supply and demand of officials issue, he'd have a point. As what's happening in Iowa, necessity is the mother of (dis)invention. But as Rich has said, while the officiating population in WI is struggling, it has not yet reached anything close to critical mass.

2. So the guy is essentially calling for more consistency. Ok, got it. He might get more consistency with 2p crews, but at the expense of quality. As I am reluctantly back to 2p in Rhode Island this year, I see the cost in terms of quality every night. The players and the officials are better than they were the last time I was here in 2009. That's a credit to the development of basketball in RI; bully for them. But the game is dangerously handsy and physical; sadly freedom of movement here is like it was everywhere else five years ago. I'm certain the lack of coverage that a third set of eyes could provide directly encourages this (I know for certain that there is BS I miss in 2p that I'd call in a heartbeat as a 3rd official off-ball). So 3p crews...consistency or not...still cleans up the game so as to make it the more free-flowing sport that the fans and players deserve. If you want football, go watch a football game.

3. If you cut the experience dividend by 50% every night, how are you going to grow officials who are already predisposed to leaving the avocation early due to lack of upward mobility, sportsmanship headaches, and poor compensation? You may not like the consistency every night, but the long-term alternative for HS level officiating is dire.

4. The op-ed author talks about WI's contracting system. That might cause some of the cut-throat competition for good officials that he presumes, but as Rich as said before, this is probably largely overstated. Of more import, I'd argue, is that it makes it difficult for assigners to pull and plug officials as needed for the big games. The author of the op-ed probably wouldn't be as concerned about the games he is referring to if those games were blowouts. I think an important role of any assignor is to be able to put the best officials on the best games, and that can't be determined 2-3 years out when the players are still in middle school.

5. Lastly, in line with #4, WI needs to get out of the habit of employing crews vice individuals. Crews are fun (admittedly I developed some closer friendships over the last two seasons than I otherwise would have in WI), but the cost is sometimes the entrenchment of bad habits and mechanics, including lack of hustle. See that same crew two or three times in a season, and I could understand why the author might get frustrated and "blame the system." Working with different people every night tends to keep you fresh, from pre-game to signals to mechanics to hustle and everything in between.

There are things that can be done in WI (see above) to enhance the basketball officiating capacity. The simple solution of reverting to 2p crews is decidedly not one of them.

Rich....you can quote me if you decide to send a letter to the editor of the Gazette. =)

Of course he couldn't get through the article without throwing some "for the kids" in there. :rolleyes:

"All I know is that it’s unfair to coaches and athletes to have games refereed by unqualified officials."

I'm amazed that I saw the article before I saw this thread.

I've posted my comments there. I tried copying here, but copy and paste on this iPad isn't acting right.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

Comments ...
 

Like any good partner, I've got your back:

Rich:

I assign for 24 high schools. I can tell you what would happen if we went back to 2-person crews.

(1) I would immediately lose all the better officials. They would work for conferences who hired 3-person crews.

(2) Physical play would increase and off-ball contact would lose the set of eyes a third official provides.

(3) You'd lose a lot of experienced people. I know a lot of experienced officials with good resumes who would retire before going back to 2-person mechanics.

I am old enough now to say I've officiated the Big 8 when 2-person crews were hired. In fast paced games, especially boys games, officiating was mostly running up and down the floor trying to keep up with play. Plays were missed, officials would have to guess occasionally rather than see and know what happened, and if there was physical or off-ball play? Good luck. Rebounds on a jump shot? One official with the shooter and defender and the other with 8 players to watch.

The game has changed in the last decade and even moreso over the 32 years I've been officiating.

Finally, counting the number of whistles each official blows shows that the writer has no concept of primary areas of coverage and what it means to not reach all over the floor to blow the whistle. I have gone entire halves not calling a single foul. It is a sign of a disciplined official to not feel he or she needs to reach just because the previous X whistles came from crewmates. We have primary and secondary areas of coverage and analysis has proved that officials get plays wrong when reaching out of those areas.

Finally, how are younger and newer officials supposed to learn how to work 3-person or even break into the varsity level if they don't get opportunities? Sadly, the coach quoted in the article seems to care only about his games, this year. Those of us who assign are seeing our officiating pools shrink and age. And in response, we see commentary that older officials who may have lost a step should be weeded out - and many of these people are the ones who have a ton of experience who can help mentor and teach the next generation of officials.

The solution to our shortages is not going backwards. The solution is to figure out why a majority of officials quit after 2-3 years and make it so they dont.

Coaches ...
 

Another comment from the article:

The only varsity coaches that prefer 2-person crews are the ones who want to be able to get away with fouls that are tougher to see without a third official. The coaches whose styles don't rely on getting away with illegal tactics have no reason to abandon 3-person.

Along with financial issues, this is the main reason why we don't use much three person in Connecticut. These coaches win, and are very influential in The Connecticut High School Coaches Association (I'm a former member), and The Connecticut High School Coaches Association has great influence on the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Association (our state sports governing body).

If the coaches, both individually, and collectively, really wanted three person, they could eventually persuade their principals (who run the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Association) to spend a little extra, and make the switch to three person.

The dirty secret nobody talks about is the amount of educated guessing that happens in a fast, physical 2-person varsity contest. People will deny it, but they're just fooling themselves.


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What I will never understand. You complain about 3 person and want to go back to 2 person, while advocating that the reason 3 person is bad, the officials are out of shape, not in position or guessing on plays. So the solution to this is to reduce the number of officials while expecting the same out of shape, not getting in position officials will be working with one less official.

Yeah, well thought out kid. :rolleyes:

Peace

Educational Guessing ...
 

It's not a secret anymore. In this modern information age, nobody can continue to deny it. Nobody is fooling anybody.

IAABO International taped many of our state tournament games last year and made educational videos of such. Videos were presented at out last local meeting. It was tough to watch our best officials "educationally guessing" wrong, especially on fouls. I felt bad watching the video with them in attendance, but none of us would be able to do any better than them, and most of us, including me, would probably do much worse.

It's not a secret to anybody who knows anything about officiating. There most definitely is guessing going on, especially after we realize we probably missed something earlier.

How anyone in the non-officiating fraternity actually believes 2 sets of eyes covering 10 players and 2 PCAs is more effective and accurate than 3 sets of eyes covering 10 players and 3 PCAs is beyond me.

I think this guy wanted to sound smart by offering a hot, uncommon take. In reality he just sounded like a buffoon.

Inexperience ...
 

Quarterfinals on up are three person, but due to our inexperience they're officiated like a two person game with an extra guy in the middle (lead never rotates). Guys often pay more attention to where their primary is, and where they're supposed to switch to (lots of pointing by partners, go there) than watching the action in front of them. Had a friend make the tournament for the first time last year (much deserved) and made it to the quarterfinals where he worked his first ever three person game, no regular season games, no camps, no clinics, no scrimmages, just some speed reading in the mechanics manual.

To say that Connecticut is "backward" or "behind the times" is a major understatement.

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