Leaving the Court

johnnyrao · #1 (**permalink**) Sat Jan 29, 2005, 02:44pm

When you ref multiple games in succession do you always leave the court after each game? Case in point:

I finished a girls varsity game last week and we were prepping for the boys varsity. The timer put 10 minutes on the clock so, by rule, we should be on the court. Normally we stay so we can watch warm-ups and check the book. Sometimes we will leave one on the court and the other two will go and get a quick drink of water. In this case we decided to stay out on the court rather than go in the ref room. As we were moving to our pre-game positions the visiting girls coach came to me and asekd if I saw one of the other players push her star player during the post game hand shakes. I did not see it and told her so. She wasn't arguing, she simply asked and when I told her I didn't see it she went about her business. Now we try to send 4 officials to do three games (if four are available). As we got together to talk about the varsity boys game the R (who did not ref the girls game) told us that we were risking serious repercussions because we stayed on the floor and if any situation breaks out or a T has to be assessed against a player or coach we have to take care of it since we never ended to game by leaving the confines of the court.

Would like some input on what you do or how we should execute this. Should we run off the court and come right back on just so there is a clear break between the end of one game and the start of another?

BktBallRef · #2 (**permalink**) Sat Jan 29, 2005, 02:56pm

I would leave the floor. That brings closure to the previous game. Stay away as long as you like, then return.

zebraman · #3 (**permalink**) Sat Jan 29, 2005, 03:02pm

I would leave the floor. It's rather ridiculous that the school is only allowing 10 minutes between games, IMHO.

Z

johnnyrao · #4 (**permalink**) Sat Jan 29, 2005, 03:11pm

In most occasions the teams for the next game are coming on the court for warm-ups before the teams from the previous game have left the court. I will recommend in the future we leave for at least a minute or so to make sure we are within the rules and the previous game is over.

williebfree · #5 (**permalink**) Sat Jan 29, 2005, 04:42pm

Johnnyrao:

In my area it is uncommon to have a Boys/Girls Varsity "double-header" and it is unheard of to have the same crew work both games. I mention this to acknowledge my "bias" (niavety) to this situation.

I believe that the officials must leave the "confines of the gym" to end the first game.

Additionally, I beleive that the teams for the second game need to be withheld from the court until the "new" crew is ready. That should be an understood standard (clearly defined expectation) by the host school.

I am curious as to what process is utilized in other areas.

johnnyrao · #6 (**permalink**) Sat Jan 29, 2005, 05:39pm

We try to send 4 officials to cover 3 games. There's boys JV, girls V, and boys V back to back. Normally they put 10 minutes on the clock as soon as time expires from the first game. We rotate through our games so one person does three and the others do two. We have no state or association standard (although I think we should look into it). What I have done on most occasions was the off official for the next game comes on the court immediately at the end of the previous game. This official will be the R for the next game. The crew working goes to the dressing room and takes a quick break and get some water before the two working the next game go back out on the court for the following game. This seems to work the best but the other night we couldn't do this because the boys V and cheerleaders were blocking the locker room waiting for the music to start so we could not get to the dressing room. So we decided to stay on the floor for the next game. Last night we only had three officials so we did all three games and stayed on the floor between games.