Training new officials

Does anybody have any hints or pointers for training new officials?

I'm the Training Officer for our board next season (www.kwboa.ca) and was wondering if anybody had any pointers of what to cover in our meetings. I have lesson plans from previous years but was wondering if anybody else had other ideas of what to do.

I will be working with the first and second year officials, we meet every second week. We have a classroom and no gym to work in (so it will all be board work, discussions and small simulations). We do have a training/evaluation tournament early in the season to get them some floor work.

Has anybody had success or failure with a mentoring program for Junior (1st and 2nd year) Officials? What has worked what hasn't?

Thanks,
Christina

[Kelvin green]

My suggestions.

-Focus on working off ball
-Focus on primary areas
-Focus in working off ball
-Focus on rfereeing the defense
-Focus on working off ball
-Focus on eliminating the "myth rules"

and last but not least did I mention refereeing the defense and working off ball?

[Robmoz]

Encourage your officials to attend a local "camp". Usually such camps are 2-3 days in length at a local HS or college and the cost will appoximate $150-200. Good opportunity to learn rules, mechanics, and be seen by assignors.

Our association works a little different up here.

All assignments come in to our board assignor and are distributed from there. I only get my assignments from one assignor unless I go to a provincial tournament where we have a Ref-in-Chief giving the assignments. All levels of ball except University and Collage is handled by one assignor.

We have a season starting tournament (referees tournament if you will) where our first and second years get exposure to the floor. They are not paid for their games. They are there to learn.

We have Senior Refs come and hold classroom sessions on specific topics (pregame conference, Technicals...) and we also do some shadow training... This is where the Junior Officials are on the floor reffing, and there is a Senior Official shadowing them talking in their ear (helping them reposition, remind what to look at (or not look at)...)

What more I am looking for is topics to cover in the classroom. We will obviously be covering positioning, and the major misinterpreted rules (and some of their nuances). (I hope that is what you mean Kelvin by "Myth Rules")

Don't worry - I'll try to get in the points of "Off Ball" and "Reffing The Defence".

[Mark Padgett]

You must start with the absolute most important piece of training information:

"Always tuck your whistle in your jersey before you take a leak".

Juulie may have other ideas.

[Nevadaref]

As a group exercise have the class draw a scale diagram of a HS basketball court on the blackboard. Have them put in the correct lengths for everything (FT line, width of the lane, 3 pt line, front face of backboard from the end line, etc.)
For example, give them a yard stick and make 1" = 1 ft. (Or make it 1/2" if you have a smaller blackboard.)
You will be stunned how much they didn't know and how much they will learn!

[rainmaker]

Originally posted by cingram
Our association works a little different up here.

All assignments come in to our board assignor and are distributed from there. I only get my assignments from one assignor unless I go to a provincial tournament where we have a Ref-in-Chief giving the assignments. All levels of ball except University and Collage is handled by one assignor.

We have a season starting tournament (referees tournament if you will) where our first and second years get exposure to the floor. They are not paid for their games. They are there to learn.

We have Senior Refs come and hold classroom sessions on specific topics (pregame conference, Technicals...) and we also do some shadow training... This is where the Junior Officials are on the floor reffing, and there is a Senior Official shadowing them talking in their ear (helping them reposition, remind what to look at (or not look at)...)

What more I am looking for is topics to cover in the classroom. We will obviously be covering positioning, and the major misinterpreted rules (and some of their nuances). (I hope that is what you mean Kelvin by "Myth Rules")

Don't worry - I'll try to get in the points of "Off Ball" and "Reffing The Defence".

At the camp I ran last summer, the two things people appreciated the most were:

1) How to toss. You work on this by standing just outside the cylinder under the basket, tossing the ball up. It should go through the hoop and come back down without touching.

2) 6-feet closely guarded. We worked on this by having a rope with a loop on each end. two people each put one foot into one loop. Then stand on the floor with the rope taut between them. This gives a very good idea of how far apart players can be. It's A LOT farther than most folks think!

A good classroom discussion would also be "correctible errors."

[Smitty]

Originally posted by Nevadaref
As a group exercise have the class draw a scale diagram of a HS basketball court on the blackboard. Have them put in the correct lengths for everything (FT line, width of the lane, 3 pt line, front face of backboard from the end line, etc.)
For example, give them a yard stick and make 1" = 1 ft. (Or make it 1/2" if you have a smaller blackboard.)
You will be stunned how much they didn't know and how much they will learn!

Call me crazy, but what exactly does that do for you? That just doesn't sound like a valuable use of time to me. Shrug.

[Jurassic Referee]

I think that the worse thing that you can do with new officials is to load them down with too much information. I think that you should start out with the basics only. Court coverage, signals, where the ball goes OOB on violations and fouls, even HOW to blow a whistle properly. The newbies have to be taught how to recognize the basic violations- OOB's, the various time-count violations, travelling, illegal dribbles, kicked balls, etc. In a class room setting, just go over examples of all of the violations and what they have to do when they recognize them. The "shadow" training that you talk about is probably the best way to work with them and get them ready. As for rules, the last thing in the world that they need is to get involved in one of the esoteric, never-happen rules discussions that we have on this forum. They need to know the basics first, and Rule 4 is probably the best one for them to concentrate on at the start. They have to learn how to walk before they can run, iow. When they're just starting out, if they just call the basic violations and obvious fouls, they shouldn't get themselves in too much trouble anyway- especially if your assignor gives them a good, experienced partner to work with.

[rainmaker]

Originally posted by Jurassic Referee
I think that the worse thing that you can do with new officials is to load them down with too much information. I think that you should start out with the basics only. Court coverage, signals, where the ball goes OOB on violations and fouls, even HOW to blow a whistle properly. The newbies have to be taught how to recognize the basic violations- OOB's, the various time-count violations, travelling, illegal dribbles, kicked balls, etc. In a class room setting, just go over examples of all of the violations and what they have to do when they recognize them. The "shadow" training that you talk about is probably the best way to work with them and get them ready. As for rules, the last thing in the world that they need is to get involved in one of the esoteric, never-happen rules discussions that we have on this forum. They need to know the basics first, and Rule 4 is probably the best one for them to concentrate on at the start. They have to learn how to walk before they can run, iow. When they're just starting out, if they just call the basic violations and obvious fouls, they shouldn't get themselves in too much trouble anyway- especially if your assignor gives them a good, experienced partner to work with.

I agree with this, except for correctable errors. Knowing the basics of 2-10 gives a newbie a lot of self-confidence and credibility. There will be a few every year, because of their inexperience, and the inexperience and inattation of the table folks. Having 2-10 in hand helps a lot.

[blindzebra]

Originally posted by Robmoz
Encourage your officials to attend a local "camp". Usually such camps are 2-3 days in length at a local HS or college and the cost will appoximate $150-200. Good opportunity to learn rules, mechanics, and be seen by assignors.

Why would you want to send brand new officials to a competitive camp?

You can't LEARN rules and mechanics in 2-3 days from scratch. Sending new officials to a camp is like teaching someone to swim by throwing them into a riptide off a 100 foot cliff.

[ref18]

Here in Hamilton, training is extensive.

We have 12 classroom sessions, one on monday and one on thursday.

We have a great education officer, who really sets things up great.

There's a specific topic, that's covered at every meeting, we were given a list at the beginning of the year that had all the topics, and the rule references so that we could study beforehand.

There was a quiz at every meeting.

And after the classroom session, there's practicle work. Anyone who wants to play, plays and anyone who wants to ref gets to ref. The evaluators are there and they give us a small breakdown at the end of the shift.

All the preparation really helped me with the exam, and my work on the court.

Our association also puts on a camp for the members every august. Its great because you've got some top evaluators like Cip watching you ref and giving you pointers.

[Edited by ref18 on Jun 10th, 2004 at 09:14 PM]

[Nevadaref]

Originally posted by Smitty

Call me crazy, but what exactly does that do for you? That just doesn't sound like a valuable use of time to me. Shrug.

Smitty,
While I do understand your thoughts, I have found this exercise to be tremendously helpful in a teaching environment for new officials. I'll expand a little bit on my reasons and perhaps you will see some value here afterall. Also remember, cingram stated that they only have a classroom and no gym, and under those conditions one can only do so much.

The main thing that making a precise drawing of the court does is to show some of the incoming people with a chip on their shoulder that they really don't know as much as they think about the game.
When they struggle to place the free throw line the correct distance from the end line, it really opens their eyes and makes them more receptive to LEARNING. At this point they can be taught much more effectively about those things that you feel are valuable.

Basically, there is more to this exercise than just drawing the court. The instructor must use it as an aide to teaching the rules.
For example, some bits of helpful knowledge that are gained by knowing the court's dimensions are:
1. How far six feet is (useful for closely guarded counts) because they now know that this is the distance from the top of the key to the free throw line and can use that as a rough guage while on the court. I do this myself, especially when the ballhandler is near the top of the key.
2. Where the coaching box should be located. Very helpful for dealing with a problem coach or coaches who like to stroll up and down the sideline. Just knowing that the coach should not be below the FT line, if a six foot box is being used can give the official a good preventative tool.
3. The point that all the lines on a court are part of that area. A cutesy phrase is OUT-of-bounds lines are OUT, lines withIN the court are IN. For example, the lane lines and FT line are part of the lane (but not the lane-space marks) because they are within the court, stepping on the 3-point line means the player is INside the 2-pt area, stepping on an OOB line during a throw-in is OK because that line is OUT, and it should be mentioned that the division line is part of the BACKcourt (can be thought of as a temporary OOB line once crossed).
4. Most people don't know that the backboard is a full four feet inside the end line. When the class comes to this, the instructor should make the point that when the ball hits the BACK of the backboard it is ruled OOB even though it is still within the boundary of the court. This then provides a nice transition for talking about how all the sides (top and bottom included) of the backboard are inbounds and when the ball passes over a rectangular board it is OOB.
Most importantly:
The rules that are learned through this tangible exercise will stay with those people far longer than if they are just told the rule or read it in the book.

[Robmoz]

Originally posted by Mark Padgett
You must start with the absolute most important piece of training information:

"Always tuck your whistle in your jersey before you take a leak".

Well, if you stand up when you go, you wouldn't have so much of a problem unless your smitty is trying to talk to your woody.

[Robmoz]

Originally posted by blindzebra
[QUOTE Why would you want to send brand new officials to a competitive camp?

You can't LEARN rules and mechanics in 2-3 days from scratch. Sending new officials to a camp is like teaching someone to swim by throwing them into a riptide off a 100 foot cliff.

Interesting, have you been to camp? It is not always a "competitive" atmosphere -- especially for newbies. The first day of classroom work and floor drills is followed by 1-2 days of actual game time in which you would work 3-4 games a day. The live time and the accompanying evaluation is quite useful.

I cannot agreee with the comparison to a riptide swimmer. Usually the attendees are segregated according to their experience level. They are not thrown on the floor as a sacrificial lamb. Granted, a thorough reading of the rules and casebook is expected on an on-going basis but you DO LEARN rules and mechanics at camp AND you get to put them in practice with feedback from those in the know.