Safety

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by ilyazhito

Mine was also a safety-related issue requiring the game to not be played

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Second worst injury I ever saw in a basketball game was a dislocated elbow. Girls varsity game. I can still hear her screams thirty years later. Four officials in that game would not have prevented that injury.

I've been involved with basketball for over fifty years, as a player, coach, fan, parent, and official.

Almost all injuries are a result of wrong place, wrong time, wrong angle, wrong landing, preexisting injury, accidents, bad luck, etc., not because of anything the official did, or didn't do. Players take off balance shots trying to avoid blocked shots, kids jump off balance trying to block shots, kids dive into bleachers trying to save balls heading out of bounds, kids trip over their own feet, kids trip over teammate's feet, kids trip over opponent's feet, and yes, sometimes kids are tripped by opponents, often with a foul being called. Some happened when a player is fouled, almost always with the foul being called by an official, and it's often not a "hard" foul, but an ordinary foul.

One of my players once broke both wrists after being fouled on a shot attempt. Official called an intentional foul. Nothing the officials did, or didn't, do previous to this could have prevented this foul by an aggressive off the bench player late in a blowout game.

How many times each season do we hear coaches say, "Better call some fouls or somebody will get hurt".

Of course that's coach-speak for, "Better call some fouls on the other team or somebody on my team will get hurt", or, "Better call some fouls on the other team so we can get some free throws because we can't make a field goal to save our life", or, "Better call some fouls on the other team so we can get their best player in foul trouble".

I hope that most Forum members wouldn't say to the coach, "Sure coach, glad to oblige, I agree that this game has been called in an unsafe manner and that we need to make this game as safe as we can, I'll be glad to call more fouls". Most officials would simply answer (if the coach was well behaved and deserved an answer) "We'll keep our eyes open coach".

That being said, that's not the same thing as my partner and I getting together and discussing that things seem to have gotten a little "chippy" and that we may want to call the game a little tighter. In fact, here in my little corner of Connecticut, we have an unofficial signal that we use to communicate such, to stay on the same page, stick out your fist and turn it like tightening a valve.