Novice's First Official Game

[Smitty]

Originally posted by Dan_ref

You should have found something to call. Your partner should have held a few whistles.

I disagree with this. Where I can see trying to motivate a novice official to blow their whistle at halftime, if they sincerely don't see any fouls, then they should not manufacture anything simply to even out the calls. I also don't think it's my duty as the more senior official on the court to hold back whistles just because my partner might be whistle-shy. I don't think it's right to have the officials affect the game because they need to be more even. On the other hand, I do think it's ok to allow the game to affect the officiating, say in a blowout.

The other day I worked with a partner who was working his first game ever. I could sense early on that he was pretty overwhelmed and was hesitant to blow the whistle. I ended up calling a lot of stuff in his area once I knew he was not going to call it because it was blatant and throughout the game I probably called 80% of the fouls. Being the senior official on the court and realizing that my partner was a little shell-shocked, my first priority was to maintain control of the game, not worry about how many whistles I was blowing compared to him.

Every situation is different, though, based on the players and coaches. I didn't have any coaches complaining about the calls.