Basketball vs. Football

[JRutledge]

Some will get very upset by what I say and may disagree. But here is a perspective from a D1 Basketball Official in a couple of my associations that I belong to.

"Basketball is 95 percent mechanics and appearance and 5 percent rules."

His point was that if you look the part, hustle have good signal mechanics, you can make it look like you know what you are doing.

"If you know the rules backwards and forward, if you signal mechanics are horse$h!t, it is not going to matter what the rule is you called."

It was said by another official that was in the Big Ten and is our head clinician, he stated,

"Football is a game of rules, basketball is a game of judgment."

The bottom line, football you have to spend much more time learning the rules and understanding all the situations on how to apply them. As a basketball official, I spend more time trying to figure out what I am going to call, rather than what the rules says to call something. Of course there are rules in basketball that take some good understanding, but when I give a T, all I am really thinking about is whether a coaches or players actions warrant a foul of that kind. It is not difficult to figure out how to enforce it. But when I do a football game, it takes some time in many cases to figure out how to enforce what took place.

Peace