The make up of a good official

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally posted by crazy voyager
one team (home, wich trails) goes off for fast break with one girl at the side, I follows and sees that the defender is sticking in her arm in what is a light foul, this foul how ever causes the offensive player to fumble and commit a dribble error/travelling (hard to say but I see definetly that it's not legal) now my point is:
1. we didn't call much fouls this game, I didn't make that of a good ggame and the R weren't in place to see the fouls, so I didn't think I should call this foul, it was to light, how ever, I can't just leave the play, a travel is a travel, but a travel caused by a foul that is below- shall we call it the "bar" in the game, what do you do? I called the jump ball, nobody complained about it, I even had a coach saying I did a good call, what would you do?

The defender in this play committed illegal contact that took a definite advantage away from an opponent. The severity of the contact never matters. The result of the contact does. A light tap on the elbow of a shooter serves the same purpose as a hard whack on the shooting arm- they both make the shooter miss.

You had two choices on this play....and two choices only. You could have ignored the illegal contact and let play continue....or....you could have called a foul. Calling something else (read jump ball) with absolutely NO rules basis to do so is never an option. And if you weren't sure, never call anything.

Maybe you got away with it in that particular game because it didn't really affect the outcome. Good luck applying that philosophy all the time though. I can pretty much guarantee you're gonna put your tits in a wringer some day if you insist on doing so.

Never call anything that you can't explain. And you sureshell can't ever explain calling something that NEVER actually happened.