I know we have discussed this before, but I was thinking about it and thought I'd throw it out there.

We hear terms like book ref, or great game manager, etc, but what percentages do you all think makes up a quality official using...

Rules knowledge: Pretty self explanatory.

Communication: This would include mechanics, signals, interaction and presence.

Judgment: This would include philosophies, common sense, and rule interpretation/application.

The make up of a good official.....hmmmmmm.

I believe Padgett uses Revlon! :D

Sorry but you knew that was coming! :)

Actually, I believe he's a Maybelline man.

I'll wear whatever matches the fishnets.

As to the three categories mentioned in the original post - I think each one makes up about 50% of the total.

Oh yeah - you also need a good understanding of basic math principles. That's the other 50%.

Uh-oh.....

BZ forgot "presence"....... :D

C'mon, it's not even Thanksgiving yet, I aint worrying about presents for another 2 months.

The title of the thread refers to a GOOD official...

I use Estee Lauder. Thanks for asking.

Me too.

Actually, I didn't.

Communication: This would include mechanics, signals, interaction and presence.

Actually I missed that.

I shall now hang my head in abject shame and exit the premises weeping.

Down in Australia fitness is always good to have????

good official:

On time, 20 minutes before is minimum, I often arrive before the teams, all to make myself familiar with the court, look at lines, team areas, all kinds of stuff.

Work togheter in the theam: you are two or three officials in a team, talk yourselfs togheter, make sure you can work togheter, and never forget the rest of the folks, ask somebody to pint out the arranger (the one repsonseble for the court) and talk to him about htings you need moved (things to close for the court, audince on the wrong place) and make sure the one who keeps score knows what he's doing.

Knwo the teams: lay the bar after the teams, in a youth match don't blow it to pieces, make sure you know were the teams are in their development and use the wistle accordingly.

Know the rules: never ever show the teams or audince you're unsure, and if you don't know, blow the jump ball, I've done this on occasions when I'm unsure, the teams usually both protest, but if you explain that I have a split second to choose, defending foul or offensve travelling, I've been in this situation (my last game acctually) and blew a jump ball. Both protested and then realised that, "gee I'm lucky I didn't make a turnover or foul" and acceppt it, and also, if you are to do this. Be polite but firm, never alter something like this. Don't begin with a jumpball to insted alter it to a travell. even if you might have figured out it should be a traveling call.


This became a long post so I'll make a summary:
know the rules, court, teams, and know the sport, you have nothing to do on the floor if you don't love this game

and above this you must (offcourse) be physicaly fit, we have to many officials here who can't even run *sighs*

If I'm reading you right, you're saying "know the rules" and <b>then</b> deliberately misapply them.

Gotta be the worst advice for an official in any sport that I've read in a long while.

Jmo, cv, but if you aren't sure of a call, the best thing to do is <b>NOT</b> make a call. And deliberately making a <b>wrong</b> call with the intent of keeping both teams happy instead of getting the call <b>right</b> isn't really the epitome of good officiating.

You may want to re-think your philosophy. It's completely wrong. Terrible advice.

hm, time for a debate again :P alright, I might have misforumlated myself. we'll see if this is more to your likening, I'm taking a girls game, one team is up big and my partner is a lazy older man who doesn't run a step, 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?

and Jurassic, I don't force people to follow my advice :P especially not the bad ones

In order to be a good ref, you must have good judgement. If you are not making the correct calls, the other two won't help you much. Although it is hard to have good judgement and not know the rules. You may not be an expert on the finer points of the rules, but to have good judgement you will have a basic understanding of the rules.

To be a great ref, you need all three.

Just my opinion.

A fumble is not a violation. Nor is it a violation to recover your own fumble. Sounds to me that you are not really sure what happened.

But if you are sure that the dribbler violated, then:

You have contact by the defender which put the dribbler at a disadvantage that is not intended by rule. This is a foul.

Even if you judge that the contact was slight, there is absolutely no rules justification for a held ball here. The held ball is for when you can't determine who touched the ball last before it went OOB. It is not an option when you can't decide if the contact was severe enough to warrant a foul call.

If you don't think the contact caused the violation, then just call the violation. If the contact was caused by a player on the team that's getting crushed, maybe you pass on the foul and call the violation. If you're not sure that there really was a violation, just let the whole play continue and tell the coach, "It was ugly, but there was no travel".

But the bottom line is, unless FIBA is drastically different from NF, NCAA or NBA rules in this respect, there's no justification for a held ball in your play.

Practice, all aspects of being an official. This is the make up of a good official. IMO

I think last year, Dan said that all you needed to do to be a great official is to pass a written test.

I think last year, Dan said that all you needed to do to be a great official is to pass a written test.


Practice

I think some of you did a great job of illustrating one of mine early on. A sense of humor is a great help. I think good officials look like they are enjoying what they do. The second of mine that I don't think I've seen yet (in the thread) is professionalism.

The defender in this play committed illegal contact that took a definite advantage away from an opponent. The severity of the contact <b>never</b> matters. The <b>result</b> of the contact <b>does</b>. 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 <b>only</b>. 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 <b>NO</b> rules basis to do so is <b>never</b> an option. And if you weren't sure, <b>never</b> call <b>anything</b>.

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 <b>NEVER</b> actually happened.

Jurassic and Chuck, I couldn't have said it better myself. Making up a call should never ever happen. Either call the foul or let the play continue. Maybe the level of the game and the "knowledge and perception" of the coach let you get away with it in that particular circumstance but somewhere along the line, that way of thinking (i.e. just making up a call) is going to get you and your partner(s) in one heck of a mess.

Well he certainly wasn't born with it!

Agree one-hundred percent.

CV... you said it yourself that the contact caused the offensive player to lose control of the ball. Why are you making this harder than it is? Foul. Administer the throw-in for the offensive team or award FT's if in the bonus and move on.

Like JR said, severity of contact is not the determining factor. The result of the contact is. Good rule of thumb... if the contact does not affect the offensive player's rhythm, speed, quickness or balance you can pass on the call, it it does affect it, you better call it.

I have an assignor who says, right before we leave the dressing room, "Have fun, and don't put any s@!t in the game." I think that sums it up. The best officials have fun at what they do, and they don't put stuff in the game that messes it all up. Of course, the reason that they don't do that is because they have excellent rules knowledge, communication skills, judgement, etc.; but I still think that if you strive not to put any, ahem, "stuff" in the game, you are working towards an admirable goal.

Alright, you've got it right. I give up :P nah, you are right, FIBA aint that diffrent.

I should really have called a foul, now I didn't and I don't think it exactly killed the game or my reputation as a ref- so I suppose I made a bad call then. BUt then again,

remember that I'm a youth ref callinbg youths, I've been doing big progress, my first season I got assigned to taking the finals of the clubs eldest girls (wich arn't that old :P but I couldn't get higher wihtout more training) and I got to ref the Boys 91 team who is best in scandinavia! So I am happy with what I've done so far, and I am acctually happy with that call, wrong or not.

I don't feel I made something to wrong really, don't know why, according to the rules I made an error, but nobody ever (IRL, only here) said it were an errant call. On the contrary, so I don't know what to think really. Probably it'll be one of these strange calls we make who we argue about for some time and then jsut forget

I think there are more choices than just a) I made a lousy call, and ruined the game or b) it was absolutely the right call and everyone should do it this way from now on.

What you shouldn't do is just forget it. Don't forget this play, and don't forget the discussion. It WILL happen again. It's a play that happens often. And more importantly, it's a situation that happens often, where you have several choices of good calls, and your judgment decides which is the best call.

As long as you keep learning and keep trying to improve, you'll be an excellent ref. As soon as you decide that you're always right, and no one can tell you anything, you're sunk. Keep looking for strengths to build on and keep looking for weaknesses to improve.

I think it would be fine to say that this was a good call, but you'll see the play differently next time, because of this discussion. Or perhaps you might say, well, the call did what it needed to do, but that doesn't make it hte right call in every situation. A third option is to think, lousy call, I'll try different point of view next time. THere are other perspectives, too. The point is, learn to be confident but teachable. Learn to recognize mistakes, and to pursue fixing them. It sounds to me like you're headed in the right direction. Asking on this board is always an excellent first step. (At least, that's what bossref wants it to be!)

intresting post there.

Well I am not saying all I do is perfect, far from, but usually my main problem is that I put the calls on a level that is to high for the playing teams. In this game I was slightly below what was a good level, I could have called more. And I don't know if this will affect my dicision if this happens again. I never think when I make calls or during a game, I just work. It's after I must have the self qritique that is needed to become a good official. And I think I have it, even though I am deaming this weren't a "louzy call".

Talking of qritique, how do you do to improve yourselfs as officials? I've been given the tip to have a mate in the audince (an official too offcours) who can comment on technique and such. But you can't have that evry game, what do you do after the game?

I go through the game, evaluate calls I've made, good once, bad ones, parts were there should be a call and I havn't called it. Then I take this with me and try to improve it to the next game, how do oyu do?