Nevada, I like your use of formulas/equations. You have a good mathematical mind. It helps in remembering officiating situations. Thanks. :)

If his mind helps you in officiating situations... I want to know what is up.... :D You may be in trouble.

Nevada, are you double posting and stroking your own ego?;)

Anything you can call early will clean up the game. If a player knows you are not going to call something, then they will take advantage of it. That goes for 3 second, hand checking, or traveling.

What I learned this summer. What you learned at a HS camp about 3 man officiating is not what someone who went to a college camp learned. Know when your partner(s) don't want a double whistle. I also learned about Windows.

Aren't the 2 sets of mechanics now nearly identical? I think the only difference now is that FED does a backcourt switch.


Is this one of the NCAA/FED differences? :confused:

The operating system? You're being really cryptic, here, Tim.

NCAA mens want you to only make calls in your area.
Work with anyone who calls it and they don't want a double whistle. FED wants lots of double whistles especially near the boarders of your area.

Windows. At camp they defined the L as having three windows.
Window 1 is at the lane line, window 2 is halfway to the 3 point and window 3 is at the 3 point line. They wanted us to start in window 2 and move with the ball, close down to window 1 then be ready to rotate. When rotating rotate to window 2.

Huh. I've been to three college level camps this summer and haven't heard that, Tim. Obviously, I'm not trying to belittle your experiences, but I don't think anyone ever said to me that you definitely should not have double whistles. What they told us is that if you have a whistle outside your primary, it should be late. You should never have the first whistle if the double whistle is outside your area. Let the primary official have first crack at it. If you think they didn't get a look, then crack the whistle. By that time, maybe the primary has re-processed the play and blown also, but the secondary coverage official should have a very slow whistle out of his/her primary. That was what I got from camp, anyway.

Gotcha. We heard the A-B-C terminology. Start at A and mirror the ball. Close down to B when the ball starts to swing. Rotate to C. We didn't get a "window" at the 3-point line, but were told that if the ball goes wide, then go wide. So we'll end up at that window anyway. It just didn't get its own number :)

Tim, I'm curious if you attended camps for women's mechanics? Maybe this would explain a little of the terminology/philosophy differences.

I've only attended HS camps. We have a lot of people in my chapter that work college and I may be confusing the men's and woman's mechanics but I've been chewed by a few this summer for calling out of my area.

Interesting... I heard about "window 1,2,3" several years ago and it has been "phased out" over the past couple few years. It's been a long time since I've heard about the "windows." At the HS camp I went to this summer (WOA camp for NFHS in Washington State), we were told there are only two positions for the Lead in 3-person.
1) Close down (what you call window 1).
2) Wide Angle (what you call window 3).

You don't ref from window 1 (it's only a "bus stop" that you stop at briefly before deciding whether to back out to wide angle or to cross over and go wide angle on the other side).

Z

All my camps were 3-whistle, so working 2-whistle tonight reminded me of something else that I learned this summer from Art McDonald. When working 2-whistle, the new Lead is responsible for the near sideline during transition. Hence, the technique of looking back over your shoulder while running upcourt. You have to officiate the OOB on your sideline, and split your attention so that you can watch any players that are advancing upcourt ahead of the ball.

In a 3-whistle game, the Lead is NOT responsible for the OOB call on the near sideline. (It's the T's call.) So there's no need for the new Lead to split his/her attention away from the players who are matching up as they come upcourt.

That "looking back over the shoulder" is unnecessary. Focus on the matchups coming to your post, let the Trail do his/her job on the OOB. It's actually a hard habit to break.

lol. It seams all the calls that I made at camp that the evaluater didn't like me making were all good calls in a two man game. And going to the L instead of the C was a hard habit to break.

After a game I officiated, a D1 official asked me what my partners first 2 calls of the game were. Without hesitation I told him that I had NO idea. Turns out that my partner made 2 similar calls against Team A. Next trip down on my end of the floor, I passed on a similar call against Team B. He said that although that's not a foul that he would call, the game must be called consistently. He didn't want me to call a "make-up" call, but wanted my partner and I to work together more to weld our 2 different officiating styles.

So now we have to wear welder's helmets to officiate? Man, that's going to slow me down bigtime.... not to mention what it will do to my field of vision.

Z

I learned that college officials bet each other drinks
on who is going to make the first foul call.

Women's 3-whistle mechanics
 

I went to one 3 whistle women's camp and worked another tourney using 3 whistle women's mechanics, and in both cases they told us that double whistles were great. They helped to sell the call, but to pause, make eye contact, and let the official report the call in his primary. If it was obviously out of your area, they didn't want us searching for fouls, but in the transition areas between primaries double whistles were good. Has anyone else been taught the same things?