When to whack...counting out loud...

[JugglingReferee]

Originally posted by jdccpa
I called two consecutive 5 second violations on a team one time. Their Coach called a time out and after the time out everytime they had the ball OOBs the whole team on the floor counted along with my arm motion. I thought it was good coaching on his part.

At one ref camp they told us to close our eyes and count 10 seconds, I happened to be the one with a watch with a second hand and was asked to keep the time, I got to see the twenty refs in the room count off the 10 seconds. No one had it right. Most came in at 15 seconds, four or five were still counting at twenty seconds.

The instructor suggested that we practice our counting at home standing in front of the microwave oven.

Before you start handing out Ts I would suggest that you are confident that your counting cadence is somewhat accurate,and never, never forget to start and keep the count when required, even if it looks like that point guard is going to make it over mid court in 3 seconds flat.


[Edited by jdccpa on Dec 20th, 2004 at 03:00 PM]

Back in the days when I coached, I had to drive to Cornwall for a tourney. That is a 7 hour drive. The radio is my car did not work, so eventually I decided to practice my 10 second count. Honest to God, I had it down to between 9.5 and 10.5. Of course now, I'm at about 11-12, which I think is best.

That's just proof that even practicing a count will improve.