I'm just curious about how some of you guys refocus after you think you may have kicked a call, obvious or not. Do you do anything specific to get refocused on the game?

I think: "Focus, focus, focus, focus, focus, focus, focus, focus, focus, focus, focus...."
mick

Sorry - can't help you. Never happened to me.

Mark
I hope you are pulling our legs

Nope, I think he's serious.

The best way is to have a short memory.

Malcolm --

Mark is one of these types who really, truly doesn't do many things wrong. When he does, it's usually a doozy, but it doesn't happen very often at all. (and incidentally, he's great at apologizing, and never makes the same mistake twice.) Does that mean I'm saying he's perfect? Heavens, no. He has some very irritating qualities, just like everyone else I've ever met. But he is very disciplined and can carefully choose how he's going to approach something and then do that thing he's chosen. With Mark, what you see is what you get.

He does pull legs a lot, and he's a self-proclaimed SOB (that's a direct quote from him!), but he errs seldom.

The rest of us (with the possible exception of Jurassic) have to learn to get our heads back in the game after a nasty error.

Or in my case, get our heads back in camp after a nasty error. On this very subject, here's what happened to me this weekend: Camp this weekend, hs varsity 4A boys tournament. Lots of fouls, lots of rough. Our assignments were in half-games. My first was a second-half. Fairly rough,but under control in the first-half. We came on the floor and thought we were doing pretty well. Actually, we WERE doing pretty well.

It was a close game clear down to the end. Nine seconds left, black down by two, white gets the ball out of bounds, in the back court, at about the 28 foot hash mark, I'm trail. Everyone knows black is going to foul, right? White in-bounds the ball backward, and three black players descend on the white player. Black knows that white could simply hold the ball there, and they want to get the clock stopped.

Okay, now here's where I goofed. I saw the descent, and then saw the black player closest to me start hitting the ball-handler on the back with both hands. Called an intentional. Seemed easy to me. Until I looked up at the row of evaluators who all had a better angle than I did. If I had stepped backward with the ball by a few steps, I'd have seen the black player on the far side get a good clean hit on the wrist. The evals all had a great view of it.

Gotta make a phone call, finish the story in a minute....

So, with the two intentional shots, and the possession, white ended up winning by about 6 or 8. The loss wasn't quite my fault exactly, but it sure was a bad error, nonetheless.

After the eval very gently pointed out my shortcoming (frankly I'd rather he yelled), I had about an hour and a half to stew until my next assignment. How did I get past it? I went and talked to myself for a little while, kicked a locker a couple times, and then tried to replay the situation in my head, with me taking those two crucial steps to get the great angle. Then I went and watched some other campers for a while.

When I make a mistake like that in the middle of a game, and have to keep going, I don't handle it very well. Maybe someone else can help you -- and me! -- with that one.

[Edited by rainmaker on Jun 6th, 2004 at 09:28 PM]

Now you would have been fine I assume if you had just called a common foul irrespective of who the call is on.

Players have the ability to make good contact during a game but ask em to foul and they do something stupid like slapping a player on the back.

We teach our officials here expect a foul late to stop the clock and call it so it does not get rough.

Malcolm

OK, Juulie. I challenge you to name even one example. Or...is that one of my "irritating qualities"? :p

A couple of things I do. I acknowledge to myself that I made the mistake and then mentally block it out of my thoughts. I will then do what I do when tired or in lopsided games, i.e., focus on the basics even to the point of talking to myself about positioning, mechanics and mental focus. Then a couple of minutes have passed, I am back in the game and it is history until later.
I keep a journal of my games and experiences worth remembering or learning from. I include my mistakes but rather than just write them down, I will study and review the rule or mechanic, call mentors and post on here. I find that even if I know the rule or situation that I kicked, I tend to not repeat the mistake this way.

Mark -- I don't want to embarass you by describing your huge mistake. I don't need to list your irritations. Everybody here already knows them.

(insert cheesy grinned smilie with thumbs in ears, and fingers waggling)

Is it possible to think you kicked a call? If /you/ think you kicked a call, then don't /you know/ that you kicked the call?

But yes, focus, focus, focus.

insert cheesy grinned smilie with thumbs in ears, and fingers waggling

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http://users.pandora.be/eforum/emoti...ers/fing36.gif

Juulie,
That was only a 6 minute phone call!
Pretty darn good. ;)

So, other than that, how did the rest of the Camp go, Juulie??? Sorry I missed it this year - but I figured my Dad's 80th birthday party was a little more important!!

There were a lot of good things, as always. Spitz really knows how to run a camp. I did have some trouble in the loser-loser-loser-loser game. Your Heritage coach (boys' var) was a royal pain in the neck. Although that wasn't how I described it during the eval time -- words fell out that I've NEVER said in my life.

WE got to meet Chris Minnich. Do you know him? He's 25 and working D1. He's never done a hs varsity game in his life. Amazing story.

What did Minnich have to say?

I know Chris...Ididn't realize he was working D1 - which conference??? When did he get picked up??? He's an interesting story, not one that many people can relate to!

And yes, the Heritage coach is a royal pain - esp. when he's losing games...kid's attitudes suck also. He is the bro-in-law to the Prairie boys coach, so those match-ups are always a hoot...

I don't remember which conference. He apparently has just finished his second season. He had so much quiet confidence, I can see why he's moved up so fast. It seems to come very naturally for him.

Mainly what he said, Luther, is that you need to go into it with your eyes open and make a well-informed choice. Don't expect to get things your way. You do what you're told, and make the best of it. If you can't live with that, it would be best not to get started. He was talking about the D2 and D1 level mostly, I think. Assignors are little gods, and you have to just submit. He wasn't saying this in a negative way. But was saying this is why a lot of people don't move up -- they want it their own way. He's flexible becuase of being very young and having no wife or family. He can choose a job around his reffing schedule, and he doesn't have a lot of juggling to do. If you are coming at it later in life, you need to see what the sacrifice could be, and try to decide whether it's worth it.

I'm young, flexible, and don't mind submitting. Problem is, I don't know what to submit to because I've never been in front of a college assignor. That's why I can't wait to go to camp. I am counting down the days, literally. I live in Ohio. For those of you that don't know, you must work 2 JV seasons before you can work a varsity game in this state. Under this system, I can see how someone may never work a varsity game, but go to enough camps to get noticed by college assignors.

Two thoughts Juulie...1)Chris has obviously matured a LOT in the last two years...2)another thing he could have put into his talk is the benefit of having a "mentor" in high places - he has benefitted quite a bit from that (and no, that's not sour grapes - just a statement of fact)...he's a great guy and I'm glad he's moved up...