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[rainmaker]

Originally posted by ref18
The education officer in my board has a really neat lesson about covering the play as trail. He has an overhead with each half of the court divided into 9 squares. His philosophy is that whatever square the ball is in, if its in the trail's primary, the official should be one square beside and one square behind. That way you're close enough to see the play, but not close enough to get involved in the play if something unexpected were to happen. I think that this is a valuable posistioning technique and use it when I officiate. It really helps to eliminate situation where you get caught up in the play.

It sounds like a great way to CUT DOWN on these kinds of situations, but you'll never ELIMINATE them completely. That little tip can be quite unpredictable.

Once you're caught, the best thing to do is either run clear up behind, so you can see between, or dash out to one side and try to get an angle that way.

Didn't we talk one time about an "educated guess", where if the ball when pretty much down it seemed likely that the defender got mostly ball, but if it went up or away at an angle, it was probably mostly arm? Is that a weird sentence, or what!?!?