Preliminary Signals

[ChuckElias]

Originally posted by zebraman
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.

They're not officiating your primary, but they see that the ball is there and you had a foul on a drive to the basket. If you don't come out with a PC signal, they also know that you're shooting FTs. That's really all they need to know, or probably care to know. You really think your partner cares if it's a push or a block?

It often matters to the coaches. "Hey ref, what did your partner just call, it looked clean to me?"

"Coach, he got a lot better look at it than we did. I'm sure he'll tell you exactly what he had."

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.

Well, since I've worked the state tournament exactly once in the 7 seasons that I've worked a full HS varsity schedule and the 3 seasons that I've worked a full college varsity schedule, I could give a flying fig about what the observers think. B/c they're not observing me!