Scrimmages

[SNIPERBBB]

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).

Unless we are training new officials, we dont even bother reporting fouls in scrimmages.

The teams dont really need us there other than to get them the feel of how officials are going to call fouls and and violations.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by SNIPERBBB

Unless we are training new officials, we don't even bother reporting fouls in scrimmages.

After nine months without working a game, it's a dress rehearsal for me as well as the teams. I always report, even if the players aren't wearing numbers (it's always zero). If my partners don't want to report, so be it. If my partners don't want to switch, so be it. I'll just report and not force a switch.

If I sound like a tight-ass, you'd be surprised that I ignore fashion police issues (although I do mention them to players and coaches ("When the season starts ..."), except safety issues, like jewelry.