Last night at an elementary summer league game, I was lead and A1 had the ball. A2 comes up from behind her and pushes her so my reflexes blow the whistle and call a foul the say she is on the same team? What would you do in this situation?

"MY ERROR!! Inadvertant whistle, A's ball. Here we go, ball is in!"

Exactly what I would do. You really don't have many options here. Unless you plan to give the foul against her teammate, I'm sure the coach wouldn't be too happy.

These situations are the worst, but my take on it is that we, as the official who screwed up put way to weight on the issue. I try to defuse these situations with humour, a little joke tends to lighten the mood. In more serious games, I just rule with an inadvertant whistle. It's all you can do. Chances are that most people won't even remember you messed up. I know that I overly dwell on situations like this, and it tends to affect my game, because instead of watching, my mind keeps going over the situation i screwed up on. So my advice, move on and don't dwell.

My thoughts exactly. Also, situations like this teach you to have a more patient whistle so that you call what you see rather than what you think you see. That, in turn, makes you a better official.

If the push didn't cause a travel, then I'm with everyone else. PS No matter how awful a mistake you pull, there's always someone here who's done something worse. Dont sweat the little stuff. Learn from the big stuff. Remember this the next time a partner pulls a bone-head move!

I once worked with a partner who made a mistake and yelled out, "Sorry, Referee Stupidity, Blue Ball!!!" Everyone in the gym had a good laugh over that one.

Travel?

If not, it's an elementary school summer game. 'Fess up to the accidental whistle, and play on. Trust me - the coaches have seen enough of this crazy stuff.

color blind......not
 

Years ago, men's independent tournament, early in the game I called a pushing foul on the rebound. Blue 14, push, white out of bounds, no big deal. I noticed several of the guys in blue frowning, mumbling to each other, etc. Finally several minutes later during a timeout, I asked one of the guys what the deal was about the call. I was told,
"Yeah, he pushed, but that was his teammate that he pushed."
My little light bulb slowly came on. Oh, I get it. All these guys did have on blue, but there were at least 3 different shades of blue. Oops, my bad. Next time somebody tell me!

Did A2's contact cause A1 to travel? If it did, you did not have an inadvertent whistle, you had traveling by A1.

MTD, Sr.

Am I missing something here? The whistle was for a foul (according to Brandan), as a result wouldn't the ball became dead at that point and thus you couldn't have a travel?

Seems to me that ref18's two comments "hit the nail on the head".

[Edited by ref20 on Jul 22nd, 2004 at 08:14 AM]

Ref18, isn't that pretty much exactly what I already said? :) I guess I said it in Referee-language, and you put it into layman's terms!

Here we go again!. :)

Hey, you'd be grumpy too if they wouldn't let you go on the Space Mountain ride at DisneyWorld because you weren't tall enough.

Chuck had a bad day yesterday.

Brandan I don't think you made an A*% of yourself at all and I don't think the coaches and the other official thought that either. I am in my first year also and have blown an inadvertant whistle twice in the past year, once with the exact same situation you had and another time on an outlet pass when the rebounder had established the pivot, picked it up and tweet I blew the whistle and didn't wait to see if the pivot was placed back on the ground. I was anticipating the travel instead of actually seeing it. On both calls all I did was say inadvertant whistle, talked to my partner to explain and continued on with the game. Neither time did the coaches complain, but both times asked what happened on the next dead ball (both were Freshman games) and were satisfied with my response. Everyone makes mistakes and most coaches know that.

Even though Brandan may have been blowing his whistle for a percieved foul by A2, A2 did not commit a foul, but very well may have caused A1 to travel. If A2's contact with A1 did not cause A1 to travel then Brandan's whistle did cause the ball to become dead and Team A gets the ball for a designated throw-in nearest the spot of the ball, due to Brandan's inadvertant whistle. But if A2 did indeed cause A1 to travel then the ball became dead when A1 traveled and Team B would get the ball for a designated throw-in nearest the spot of A1 violation.

The point is that Brandan's "inadvertant" whistle would have sounded after any possible violation by A1 and if A1 did indeed travel then that violation can be penalized.

MTD, Sr.

Nope, the point was that Brandan's whistle sounded ON the foul and caused the ball to IMMEDIATELY become dead. It's impossible for the ball to become dead when A1 travelled because it was ALREADY dead on the inadvertant whistle for the presumed foul.

There is absolutely NO way in the world that you can have a travelling violation AFTER an inadvertant whistle is blown. Very simple rule, Mark. Rule 6-7-5- <i>"The ball becomes dead, or remains dead, when an official's whistle is blown"</i>. There are some exceptions listed to that, but travelling after a whistle sureashell isn't one of them.

Brandan said that he blew his whistle "on the foul." That brings up a whole new thread regarding anticipating the call and blowing one's whistle too soon. My rules books are packed for my officating trip tomorrow, but when a violation or foul occurs, the ball is dead because of the infraction, not withstanding the exceptions listed in the rules book, the sounding of the whistle does not cause the ball to become dead because the infraction caused the ball to become dead.

MTD, Sr.

No, the infraction which caused the whistle to sound did not occur (the foul), so we have an inadvertent whistle. This is not a legal proceeding where the prosecutor draws up a list of indictments and hopes one will stick.

Brandan, in this business the only way to improve is to make mistakes. You'll be doing yourself a huge favor if you learn now that mistakes will happen and it's your job to make things as right as possible when they do. As opposed to figuring out how you can twist the situation so that you come out looking good.

Inadvertent whistle is in the book for a reason.

Brandon gave no indication of the exact time of the whistle. To say he did is putting words in his mouth. He simply said he saw a push and reflexively called a foul. He didn't indicate the point at which he actually blew the whistle.

It is entirely possible that A1 traveled before the whistle. If so, it should be a travel. If not, indavertant whistle.

Just becasue you blow the whistle for one thing doesn't mean that's what you have to call if you realize it should be something else. And you don't have to ignore the "somethinge else" because you first had it wrong.

Brandon blew his whistle for a foul. There was no "something else", like a travel,involved in the play at any time. To say that there was IS putting words in his mouth. It's an inadvertant whistle because no foul actually occurred, and there was no mention of any violation occurring either. Simple call. Why complicate it by trying to factor in completely different circumstances that would call for a completely different call?

What he said.

MTD, Sr.

As a coach, I gain more respect for officials who admit when they make a mistake, come over and explain it, and then carry on.

What is really ironic to me, the better the official, the more times they admit when they make a mistake. They have the confidence in their own abilities to be wrong. I really like that.

Officials who have been around a while know this, and make it work for them. The problem is that officials who have been around a while don't make a lot of mistakes, so it's easier to admit it when they do. Even with your very mature view of officiating, you wouldn't have more and more respect for an official who made 15 or 20 mistakes in a game (and I know that can happen cuz I've done it!), even if they admitted them all!

I agree with everyone.
However, Mark T.'s suggestion is an excellent procedure for the experienced official who is quick thinking on his feet.

mick

I made an A*% of myself Saturday. I was umpiring a baseball game and rung up a batter with my best Strike Three call. Problem was it was only strike two. It happens, but it should not happen often.

That'll sure speed up a game!!

Just tell them you thought you were doing slow pitch and started with a 1-1 count. :)

Darn those Catholic League Rules ;)

(They play a 3-2 count for HS baseball and softball)