Preliminary Signals

[zebraman]

Originally posted by ChuckElias
JMO, Z-man, but sometimes it's just not necessary. If A1 drives to the basket and is fouled in the act of shooting, does it really matter if it's a block, a push, or a "hack"? Everybody in the building knows that the shooter was fouled, and nobody cares what you call it. In those cases, I usually will just give the fist and then give a signal at the table. That's just me, and I know it's not exactly by the book, but I'm comfortable with it. If you don't need to communicate anything, then why bother? Again, that's just me.

Communication
I can think of lot's of reasons, but mainly for my partners. If they're doing they're job, they weren't watching my primary. Now they know what I called. It often matters to the coaches. "Hey ref, what did your partner just call, it looked clean to me?" "He called a block coach."

At NFHS state tournaments, there is often a very, very fine line between the ability of officials. An official who fails to give a preliminary signal every time, might just give one of the evaluators a reason to make a delineation between two very good officials.

Z