I used to live in New Orleans and I was wondering if they had made the move to 3-whistle mechanics.

So I looked on their state website for a manual. This is what I found -- doesn't it seem to be about 10-15 years old considering some of the mechanics in the document? Do they REALLY work this way?

http://www.lhsaa.org/officialsfiles/...nicsManual.pdf

--Rich

Yup, that's how they do it to this day. I was a certified official in Shreveport before I moved up to Illinois about three years ago. Mac Chauvin of the LHSAA doesn't think that the majority of the officials down there can make rotations work so they took all the guesswork out and made Center alway opposite the table.

They do things differently down there. They require their certified officials to pass the part 2 test closed book with a 90% or better or they get knocked down to approved for a year.

I will say that a majority of the larger schools had refs that did college games too and those refs normally used rotations.

Hey, Hey, Hey... Enough with the Louisiana :-p, but this is how we do it down here.

We did 3 whistle this way when I lived in Lousyanna for many years.
Mack was indeed afraid of pushing the officials much more as so many associations rarely got to work 3 whistle.
The only thing I have to say about it is,,,,,,,,,,if you get tired of running, call a foul and you are in the rocking chair for a while.
NOW, I would have never done that. hehehe

The center official is always positioned across the court from the scorers' table working in the general area of the
free throw line extended. On rare occasions, when play dictates, work the trail position on the side of the court but resume
normal position as soon as possible. The trail official will always be on the same side of the court as the scorers' table and must
never be out of position on the fast break. A change must be made from trail position to lead position in an instant should a
quick turnover take place. The lead official should move along the entire end line working 4 to 6 feet off the line so that he or
she assumes the most advantageous position to cover any play.

Very bizarre!!!



But there's more than just that. The very first page has a diagram showing the officials positions for pregame warmup. It has the U1 and U2 reversed from the NFHS diagram on page 17 of the Officials Manual. So in LA the U1 watches the visiting team warmup. ???
Although, the text does say that the U1 should inspect the home team, so maybe just the diagram is incorrect.

Also,
"All officials always rotate according to rules and diagrams after each foul"
NFHS calls this dead ball change of positions a switch. Rotation is reserved for the live ball movement which those in LA do not do.



[Edited by Nevadaref on Nov 24th, 2004 at 01:58 AM]