My New Strategy for Dealing with Complaints in Intermurals

[bradfordwilkins]

Since we have to warn them for any non-threatening complaining, I thought of a new idea that is probably not very original, but will at least be incredibly entertaining.

I will be bringing a copy of the rule book and leaving it at the scorers table. When someone promises me that the hand is not part of the ball or that a defender can't move their feet or its a block or that they can box out a player 3 feet backwards, I'll simply ask them to find it in the rule book and show it to me.

Occassionally now what I do is ask someone to find it in the rulebook and bring it to me the following week. With this new method I get to see their faces filled with confusion as they try to find their way through the rulebook and hey, maybe they might even learn something.

I'd love if a requirement for playing intermurals, each team captain had to take a referee's exam showing they fully understand the rules. Haha

I'll report back later tonight if I get to use this idea. If anyone else has had similar experiences, let me know, could be a fun topic.

Brad

[RefTip]

I think I'll use this strategy when officiating youth league.

[blindzebra]

Not a good idea.

Are you always 100% sure of every call you make?

Before you all say yes, why do we always have 10 page debates on this forum?

Not only that, but it's not very professional. If they ask, tell them you'll show them the rule after the game, but don't put a rule book at the table and confront them with it.

[bradfordwilkins]

So no real exciting stories to tell.

Had a player box another one out about 3-4 feet, called the push. He started giving me lip about it saying he's played basketball all his life, thats called a box out. I asked him to show me during halftime where the rule was that said he can push someone back 3-4 feet. He said he doesn't need to show me because he knows the rules haha.


Playoffs start this week, I think thats when the trouble begins. Kids who don't care if they are suspended from intermurals because its their senior year anyway, so if they get blown out have no cares *****in or moaning.


[Edited by bradfordwilkins on Feb 28th, 2005 at 08:45 AM]

[tomegun]

Brad, this is one of the most ridiculous threads I've seen in a long time. I can't believe your confidence was boosted because you put a rule book at the table. Back to the drawing board my man.

[dsimp8]

Bradford...I don't deal with Intermurals but I deal with the next worst thing.......Church league men. The season starts tomarrow night. What I tell them at out pre-game huddle is " we are going to call the best game we can and you play the best game you can. We are going to miss some calls and you are gonna miss some shots . We aren't going to yell at you if you miss a shot, you don't yell at us if we miss a call."
I then proceed to give them their reminder that they are out here for exercise and fellowship with fellow Christians and we aren't going to have any negative talk. I used this for two nights during church league Sr High Boys and had no problems out of any of them. One of those teams was notorious for running their mouths and complaining to use. I did not hear one peep out of them.....and this was in the tournment.

[blindzebra]

Originally posted by dsimp8
Bradford...I don't deal with Intermurals but I deal with the next worst thing.......Church league men. The season starts tomarrow night. What I tell them at out pre-game huddle is " we are going to call the best game we can and you play the best game you can. We are going to miss some calls and you are gonna miss some shots . We aren't going to yell at you if you miss a shot, you don't yell at us if we miss a call."
I then proceed to give them their reminder that they are out here for exercise and fellowship with fellow Christians and we aren't going to have any negative talk. I used this for two nights during church league Sr High Boys and had no problems out of any of them. One of those teams was notorious for running their mouths and complaining to use. I did not hear one peep out of them.....and this was in the tournment.

I'd avoid using phrases like, "We are going to miss some calls."

Just tell them that sportsmanship is the rule and nothing else will be tolerated, and leave it at that.

The less you say the better in EVERY situation.

Set a threshold you won't allow to be crossed, and warn ONCE if a player is close and penalize if it's crossed.

[CaptStevenM]

Brad, for future reference, its not intermurals, its intramurals.

I hear you, playoffs started two weeks ago here at NC State also and the complaining and yelling has increased, as well as more "fans" showing up to contribute their two cents.

[bradfordwilkins]

Oops - Thanks Steve.

Yea, I haven't had to deal with fans except during fraternity games so far.

The closest thing I've seen so far is an occassional team will have a "Coach." Now there are no provisions for bench personal in our rule adaptions, so the "coach" is a fan and thus the captains responability.

On the note of fans, We've got the go-ahead from our supervisors to warn the captains of any fans and if problems persist, issue technical fouls. I really don't want to ever come to this and will realisicall have a fan ejected with no penalty in most cases. It just seems to me that it would be so easy to have one of your friends pretend to be a fan for the other team and get a technical foul assessed. Most of the time you can tell pretty sincerely, but not worth the gamble imo. How do you guys deal with em down at NC State?

[canuckrefguy]

It's just a matter of time before someone lucks out and makes an *** outta you with that rulebook. Unless, of course, you've memorized it front to back (which, I suppose, is possible! )

[bradfordwilkins]

canuckrefguy - a risk I'm willing to take hehe. To be honest, anything that would make an *** out of me already has a provision in the inTRAmurals guidelines.

The captain of either team has the ability at anytime to call for a "Protest." Essentially, equivilent to a challenge in football without the use of instant replay. Certain things are challengeable, for instance how many shots someone has or who gets possession on a double foul or anything of that nature. Eye-ball calls, for instance
fouls or out of bounds calls can't be "Protested."

Depending on the openess of a situation, sometimes in-between calls are allowed for traveling and such. For instance, at another court (not my game) one time a player was dribbling and fell down while dribbling, continued their dribble and got back up. Ref called travel and the Captain protested. Since neither party disagreed on the continuation of the dribble, it was eligible for Protest. Had the ref said that the player picked up his dribble in his eyes, it would not have been a "protestable" situation (just a miscall, as if that was his view it'd be a dd)

The purpose of the rule book goes more for halftime teaching sessions on a lot of the myths, like the examples I mentioned in my orginal post. These kids have been playing basketball their whole life and realistically have never looked at a rule book. I think that intimidation alone will hopefully give them a new perspective into our job and give them further clarity on the rules.

The disrespectful ones realistically I won't get into a confrontations with. I'll smile and do my job. The rule book is for those who are somewhat decently cordial. Whenever I have a quick moment after a ruling of a myth call, I like to give a quick explanation if we have a second. Wishful thinking I know that everyone cares what the rules are, but at least I've made that effort.

And if I'm made a fool of, I'll be the first to laugh at myself and admit fault. With only a little under 80 games under my belt in the last month (about 15-20 a week), I'm always learning.

So the rulebook is there for me too. The other day after a game where we had an intentional foul and a made bucket, I wasn't sure on procedure. We went with two free throws and the ball, but I made sure to double check after the game. In the past I'd check when I got home, but on days where you are doing 5 games or Sundays when I do upwards of 7-8 games, it'll be nice to get the info earlier in case there are any duplicates.

Wow I just wrote a novel. Just some thoughts

[JRutledge]

I have a great way to handle players and coaches at the intramural level. How about do not do them? That seems to work well for many of us.

Peace

[bradfordwilkins]

Haha JR -- This is my officiating gig as I go to UMD. Any thoughts and/or advice how to move up is appreciated

Thanks,

Brad

[JRutledge]

Originally posted by bradfordwilkins
Haha JR -- This is my officiating gig as I go to UMD. Any thoughts and/or advice how to move up is appreciated

Thanks,

Brad

Contact a local school or local official's association. That would be a great start if you want to work other basketball. I never worked intramural basketball when I was in college. I only worked HS and JH ball at that time. Just contact those groups and someone can tell you how to get started in officiating and getting away from those intramural games.

Peace

[Dave Dow]

Being a new ref in the game I have been doing Jr High And JV games. I did about 20 some games in total. Along with that I was asked by our assigner to do our over thirty league. After this year I will continue doing the league because of the experience that I have gotten. 100% confident in the calls I make now. The players do complain but I take it with a grain of salt. Big lesson "consistant calling". Lot of the players are coaches and college level players,thay have a few tricks that they do so you have to try to catch them in the act.