Has anyone ever used one while officiating? AND, does anyone know where I would be able to get one before the start of next year?

I would like to wear one while officiating to see how many miles a night it is wunnin up and down the floor.

I'd love to know too. Let us know what you find out.

You know
 

Like those wascally wabbits!

Believe it or not, WalMart carries pedometers as well as any local running shop. Many sporting goods stores sell them as well.

I'd bet that thest things would be horribily inaccurate for reffing.

I beleive that most, if not all, of them work by counting strides and mulitplying by the length of your stride (a setting that you give it). For runners, walkers, and joggers, that is probably a close assumption. For officiating, the stride would vary so much, you could be 2-3x off.

How about a GPS? ;) Actually, for soccer it might work, but basketball courts are too small, and GPSs don't really work inside.

We have an official in our conference who wears something to measure her distance. she says 2.5 to 3 miles a game.

I did it once. I don't remember what the mileage was, but I remember that it was quite a bit less than the 5 miles somebody in my association was suggesting. (I believe Earl Stromm implied that distance in his book, as well).

Our commissioner says that a good varsity game gets you about 5 miles. That's 2-person. I suppose it depends quite a bit on the game, too. Like, one game they showed a clip from this evening was 52-60 at the half!! That game got more mileage than a game that ends up 52-60 for the whole thing.

In our association, we have some refs 'wander' some steps in the game - very poor work ethic

That stinks. I was going to try it out and then possibly propose a research project (thesis) on the possible benefits of officiating and aerobic/anaerobic activity in males 35-40 years old.

I may still try it. I will keep you all informed. Heck, they may not even think it is a worthy research project.

I dunno - that (or some version, perhaps sans pedometer) seems like a pretty darn good research topic to me.

I definately need to lose some weight, and obviously reffing helps. However, basketball is often something along the lines of: sprint to new lead, stop, walk across the lane, call a foul, stop, jog to the table, jog to C, stand for a minute to watch free throws, run down to new C, stop . . . it's not the very model of a modern aerobic exercise.

I'd be interested in seeing if reffing is, indeed, an aerobic activity (wireless pulse monitors, perhaps) and, if not, how much of an impact on health does it have.

Agreed
 

We have an official in our association who consistently wears a pedometer. He states that it is usually between 2.5 - 3 miles/game.

Here is the sad news, all that running and have you really gone anywhere? :D

..and he quotes Gilbert and Sullivan, too. What a guy!

The technology varies, bus most pedometers use some type of "g" sensor to measure the number of steps or strides you take. You then multiply this by the length of your normal stride to get approximate distance.

I tried wearing my wife's pedometer for several games this season & averaged roughly 3500 strides per game. It takes me an average of 12 strides to make a lead/trail transition or vice versa, which on an average court is approx. 60 feet - translating into 5 feet per stride. Say I knock off 500 walking strides for misc. activities not in transition, this works out to approx. 15,000 feet, or just under 3 miles per game - 90% of which is done in sprints. Add to that the 500 strides at a normal gait of 2.5 feet and you get almost another 1/4 mile.

Not a bad workout for 75-90 minutes....now I know why those double-headers wear me out!

I'd like to see how many miles the officials on the UAB-Washington game racked up.

Tim -- Did you and I chat at the Blazers game last evening? Welcome to the board! It's a good one, isn't it? Don't forget to drop me an e-mail. juulie alias rainmaker

Let's say it's 2.5 miles. That's 13,200 feet. If a junior high court is 74 feet and a high school court is 84 feet long, you'd have to go up and back 178 times on a junior high court and 157 times on a high school court. That's all the way from one endline to the other, which we don't always do. If we're the lead on the one endline, we become the trail at the other end, and go probably 3/4 of the way down. I know there's some switching and some side-to-side and going to the table and stuff, but I'm skeptical that you'd go end-to-end 40+ times in a quarter.

I mean, I know we run quite a bit and all (my hamstrings would feel it after doing the typical three-games-back-to-back-to-back in my league), I'm just slightly skeptical it could be quite that much in actual mileage. I would think pedometers would be more accurate in a straight line, Point-A to Point-B, relatively constant stride situation and not in the stop-start-slide-walk-stand-sprint-stop-slide way we have to do our jobs.

Of course, I could be wrong.

Yep, twas I.....you were right,this is a great board, glad I took your advice & checked it out.

email we discussed on the way this evening...

Tim

It depends how much you move
 

We have a referee (one of the the league officials, which is why he still gets games) who barely moves at all. If he's over 200 yards a game, I'd be amazed. He mostly stands in the middle and turns around. The other refs call him "The Lighthouse".