Not back court

[Forksref]

I agree with Rich. Hands on the ball doesn't mean it is 'held'. Let someone attempt to pull it away first before you blow the whistle.

[BktBallRef]

I may have mentioned the game I had a couple of weeks ago, girls Christian private school game. The coaches, administration, and parents are convinced that if one of their girls is touched, it has to be a foul. Heaven forbid one of them hits the floor. It's gotta be an intentional or flagrant foul. In any case, here are some examples of what happened:

Coach comes ACROSS the floor, at the 6 min. mark, to myself and one partner while the R was at the table, to tell us how HE want the game called. Meanwhile, the R is learning that the lineup hasn't been submitted to the table. Coach is more concerned about how HE wants us to perform our job than he is about doing his own job.

Coach has three girls get injured in the game. A foul was called during each of the for situations. On the final injury, the parent came onto the floor and is yelling at me that I allowed his daughter to get hurt. Of course, Barney Fife is outside, getting a doughnut. Actually, the foul didn't even cause the injury. After the foul and the call, the girl just flops to the floor, like someone has just shot here in the head. She bangs her head on the concrete floor.

Then some man comes on the floor, gets in my face, and tells me that we are going to have to start calling the game closer! I back up, inquire exactly WTH are you, although I don't use those words. He informs me he is the AD, to which I reply that doesn't give him a right to storm onto the floor and tell us how the game is going to be called.

After a short break and conference to restore order, we finish the last 5 minutes of the game. We called 11 fouls on each team in the 1st half, and 10 and 8 in the 2nd half. None of the fouls involved excessive contact nor were they intentional or flagrant in nature. We were consistent throughout.

Oh, the best part! The AD took an a$$ chewing from my booking supervisor when he called to complain about us!

[zebraman]

Parents of boys are used to watching their child fall down and come up with a face full of dirt since he was a little guy. Many parents of girls haven't seen that on a daily basis since childhood. I try to keep that in mind when officiating girl's ball and hearing the ignorant chatter from the stands.

Z

[BktBallRef]

I agree Z. I can handle ignorance in the stands. But what I won't tolerate is...

...a coach who comes to me before the game and tells me how he expects the game to be called.

...game management that allows fans to come onto the floor and yell at officials.

...an AD who comes on the floor, without identifying himself, and yells at an official that he wants the game called closer.

Those are the things that got the AD in trouble with the booking supervisor in our situation.

[Rich]

Originally posted by zebraman
Parents of boys are used to watching their child fall down and come up with a face full of dirt since he was a little guy. Many parents of girls haven't seen that on a daily basis since childhood. I try to keep that in mind when officiating girl's ball and hearing the ignorant chatter from the stands.

Z

And that is sad. Parents like this are, without realizing it, holding girls and women back by treating them differently on the court. It is a contact game and players will get knocked down and occasionally hurt.

A really bizarre column in the local paper here last season noted that the big conference's girls games were getting rougher -- that there were a LOT of fouls called in those games. The article acknowledged that there were a lot of fouls called but still blamed the officials for allowing rough play. Figure that one out -- the article seemed to be blaming the officials for whistling too many fouls and for having rough play simultaneously.

What's worse is when a player actually does get hurt during some isolated play, you call a foul on the play, and get blamed for it anyway. Makes you want to say, "I CALLED a foul! What else do you want me to do? Take the charge myself?"

Back to 2-man tonight. My little "vacation" working 3-man in Illinois is over for now and now I'm back to the 2-man realities of home

[Hawks Coach]

I coach girls only now, used to coach both. We play a physical game, if my girls play me in practice I try to give them more than they will ever get in a game. Basketball is a physical sport when it is played well, and girls can and should learn to handle it. I know that mygirls are much better as people from having played high level physical ball.

[Forksref]

I was reffing a pair of freshman games last Saturday. I hear what the fans say but I don't listen. To me, it seemed like the parents of the girls were yelling at the players, in other words, "coaching" them. During the boys game the parents seemed to be yelling at the officials, a more "traditional" approach. I think parents of girls are more protective and the dads assume the girls don't know much about basketball out there. Maybe if they worked with their kids in the driveway more instead of turning them over to organized teams, they'd learn more. One of the biggest changes in sports in the last 30 years is that kids don't play pickup games after school anymore. Everything is 'organized', e.g., rec leagues, park board leagues, etc. It must have to do with both parents working now. Kids are missing out on the 'fun' of sports. We didn't need parents to organize everything for us to have fun.