Scrimmages

[Rich]

Originally Posted by ilyazhito

On the one hand, I understand why teams pay less for scrimmages (or even nothing) than real games. It's a dress rehearsal for the regular season games they will later play.

On the other hand, it is really annoying how unseriously teams take the officials at scrimmages. They expect the officials to just go along with whatever they want, when it's not that way in the regular season. The thing that really grinds my gears is the non-standard rules many scrimmages are played by. Deleting the score, resetting fouls at the quarters, and in one private school scrimmage I did a few days ago, an automatic bonus situation with 45 seconds left in each period. All this nonsense makes it difficult to figure out what is actually in play and what isn't, not to mention the irregular uniforms making it difficult to identify players. I appreciate working a scrimmage or two to get practice, but not when you're required to do them for free. Maybe offer some incentive (i.e. have the scrimmages serve as an extra training/evaluation opportunity).

Sometimes flexibility is important in officiating. When I do a scrimmage (and I do more in football than basketball and they are always paid), it's not my show, it's a practice involving two or more schools. The teams can do whatever they want, far as I'm concerned.

What I did learn from a HoF official who's since passed who was a mentor in my early days is this -- you don't call technical fouls or warn coaches in the scrimmages other than tell them to knock it off or you're going to the house. ESPECIALLY if they're free. That said, in my area, nobody says anything during scrimmages.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Rich

...in my area, nobody says anything during scrimmages.

Same here (with one exception from an out or area coach for me). Coaches are normally too busy in a scrimmage worrying about possible starters, possible off the bench players, who's varsity, who's junior varsity, who's freshman, who plays well together, who doesn't, what old plays, or new plays, are working, etc., to worry about the officiating. We even use our rookie mechanics training classes in a few varsity scrimmages and coaches hardly complain.