I'm U1 in a 3-person game last Friday night. R is a very strong official and a strong personality too. When you ref with him, he runs the show. I have no problem with that, he usually captains a good ship. Right before the first half ends, U2 makes a good call on B1. Team A is in the bonus. Clock is stopped correctly and shows 0.2 (two tenths).

R is going to administer free throws and he starts to clear the lane. I jog down to talk to him and say, "why are you clearing the lane?" He says, "that's the rule with less than 3 tenths. Nobody can score. The half is over after the free throws."

I say, "that's wrong Joe, a tap can score. Plus, lots more can happen... a foul.. many things." He insists he's right. I explain again and he insists he's right in a tone of voice that tells me that it isn't up for further discussion. I make one final plea and say, "Joe, we have to finish out the half. We can't walk off the floor before the buzzer goes off, let alone with 2 tenths showing on the clock." Joe glares at me and I don't want a big scene so I back off.

Now our U2 comes over and Joe gives him the same explanation. U2 says, "that's wrong." R insists he's right. Both coaches want an explanation so Joe goes over to explain it to them. I pull the U2 out to center court because it's a no-win situation. We face the players (everyone now huddled around their bench except for the shooter) and watch. Both coaches insist he's wrong but Joe is dug in now. This debacle takes about 3 minutes. The coaches finally relent and Joe administers a lane-cleared free throw. First one misses and Joe sounds his whistle to end the half. We walk off to catcalls and boos as the clock displays 0.2

As soon as we get in the locker room, I get out the case book and educate Joe. He gets quiet, sheepish, then apologizes. As soon as we get out for the 2nd half, he apologizes to both coaches. They're not happy, but neither one of them strangle him. The rest of the game goes OK, but the cloud of a major screw-up hangs over my house as I go to bed Friday night. It didn't affect the outcome of the game but it felt wretched.

By the way, Joe has great court presence. :rolleyes:

Z

Maybe he had high test scores.
 

You mean you both allowed an official to administer a rule that did not exist?

WOW!!!!

It sounds like those test scores could not help you on this one.

Peace

We sure did. It came down to choosing between having a big scene (I.E. argument between a crew of officials) and stepping aside. Hopefully he learned his lesson that if both partners are telling you you're wrong and both coaches too, you just might be wrong. :D

At the time, I thought the most professional thing to do was get into the locker room and deal with it there. It was a no-win either way.

Z

Before you said too much to him, I would suggest a statement that starts with, "for the record..." That is all you can do. All the court presence in the world doesn't matter if you are so stubborn that two officials and two coaches think you're wrong and you won't budge. You should report this incident. Maybe the game has passed old Joe by.

You need to tell your commissioner or assigner what happened so this will not happen to no one else. I had the same problem with a partner and he totally embarrased me in a game. I got him straight at the end of the game and told the commissioner. Never had a problem with him again.

Z,
I would have done the same as you.
Is Joe a 50-60 year-old official who's synapses are failing?
mick

Sounds like a real tough situation.

An alternative: Call and officials time out. All three officials meet ... quickly. Would simulanious two against noe have helped him see the basic logic and accuracy of your argumant?

That's a tough situation but I don't know what else you could have done. It seems that both coaches recognized that you and your other partner knew what was right but you were getting railroaded. The only thing that would have been worse is if he continued to defend himself at halftime.

Hmmm...I know this wasn't Joe T., as I worked with him on Friday night...was it by any chance Joe J. - aka "Jumping Joe"??

No. I used "Joe" to protect the innocent. I'm not going to out my real partner.

Z

Zebraman,
You did the right thing at the moment. Doing the "right thing at the moment" and the "right thing" are often different with time and hindsight. I think as officials we all try to do the "right thing at the moment" and have chat forums like this to make sure we did the "right thing".

In a much more serious but proper analogy, the air marshall wishes he hadn't shot the mentally ill guy last week in Miami, but did what he had to do at the time based on the situation and knowledge he had.

The Saturday Morning Quarterbacks will tell you that you didn't follow the rules, but you moved forward. Nobody is going to be honest and tell you that they would have stood against a partner in that situation.

The actions, as suggested by others in this thread, after the game are the "right thing" to do now.

KenThree

Z...when I first read your post I was thinking Joe T. as well...mainly because you said strong court presence (Afterall, he did the WA 4A championship game last year)
but, in the few dealings I had with him...I didn't think he would be that stubborn.

Speaking of court presence...when I went to the 4A state playoffs last year, I knew some of the officials that were there...but, for the most part I had never seen many of them work.
It was kind of funny...as I sat in the first meeting, I decided to "pick" the 3 officials that I thought would make the Final game. How did I pick them? On their presence in the meeting...how they communicated with the staff...how they interacted with their peers.

Joe T. was one of the officials I picked. In fact I got 2 out of the 3 officials that worked the Final without ever seeing any of them work.

What's that got to do with anything? I dunno, just that IMO presence, communication and interaction (managing people) all have an intrical part of officiating, and the officials that have this skill can usually go far in this avocation.

Your "captain" didn't listen to his deck hands...IMO, that's why you feel bad z...you couldn't quite communicate what, in most cases, probably comes easy for you.

I would agree with all of the above...about the "real" Joe and the "imaginary" Joe...sometimes it comes down to which battle you think you can win. In this case, all the information was given and the partner wouldn't listen - let him/her take the crap that hits the fan later. I would make certain that the assignor heard about it from me BEFORE hearing about it from coaches.

Just curious, Rocky (see related thread about "tattling"), what would you say to the assignor? I mean specifically, what actual words would you say?

How many timeouts do officials have? :rolleyes:

Z...me and a couple other officials talked about this play on the way to our game last night. One of the officials actually had something similar happen to him when he was coaching his son's AAU team. The only thing different was that it was at the end of the game...and he was able to convince the official to shoot the FT's with .2 sec left.

We came up with an idea. Since the R found out he was mistaken...how about having the kid that didn't get his FT's go ahead and shoot them before the second half starts...then start the second half with the usual AP arrow. You don't get the .2 playing time...but, at least the kid gets his shots, and you could sell it as a correctable error to the other coach. (Afterall, no time has run off the clock since the error.) ;)

Just curious, Rocky (see related thread about "tattling"), what would you say to the assignor? I mean specifically, what actual words would you say? [/B][/QUOTE]

Juulie, you can read my generic response in the tattling thread...in this specific instance, I would call the supervisor and say "Dave, we had a problem tonight, and I'm sure you're gonna hear from the schools." Then I would explain it exactly the way it happened - just the facts, no opinions or comments added...after the facts are in, the supervisor will ask questions and I will answer them absolutely honestly - including ones about "Why didn't you stop him, DJ?" And there will be questions...as I said in the other post, it's not to get anyone in trouble, but the supervisor needs to know BEFORE the schools start calling and yelling about it.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by RookieDude
[B]I didn't make the original post as clear as I should have. We did shoot the one-and-one. However, we shot it with the lane cleared rather than with players along the lane. Rather than finishing the final .2, we left the floor after the free throws.

Z

I think a better approach in this case might be to tell the guy who made the mistake that he needs to call the assignor ASAP and explain. He was the R, he should explain his decision to the boss.

I would only call if he refused, and I would follow up with him the next day to make sure he did call & find out what the assignor said.

But I don't think I would initiate a call without that discussion.

[Edited by Dan_ref on Dec 13th, 2005 at 12:35 PM]

Good point, Dan...I would give him the chance to make the first call, but I still think I'm calling too, just to make sure...had too many times where the partner says yes, but doesn't and then I get a call from the supervisor who is angry that they had no warning before the schools started calling. Again, my call is not to get anyone in trouble, just to alert the supervisor...

Yep, we're completely on the same page. Trust but verify. And it's not at all about turning someone in, it's to alert the supervisor.

Unlimited, but they are only allowed to be 7.2 seconds each. :D