I am a second year ref and I was working a girls JV game last night. Midway through the the second quarter, I'm trail, Team A passes ball into post, I'm obstructed from the view as the ball goes out of bounds. The lead official who is a twelve year vet loks to me for help. I give him the obstructed eye sign if you know what I mean. He makes a call then for team A. At halftime he says politely that never give a no call just make a call, when he looks to me for help. Do not look unsure, just make a call. He said he would never go to AP in this situation. Is this right?

No. Do not, EVER, make it up. If you don't see it, you can't call it. You will go far by being humble than by lying. That is what your partner is asking you to do -- to lie. The AP rule is just fine for these situations. I used it in a game last week when the ball went OOB on my partner's line and I could not help.. Not a word of complaint from anyone.

This is a philosophy that a lot of people use, although I'm not entirely comfortable with it. They think it looks better to guess and have a 50% chance of getting it right than to admit to everybody in the gym that neither one of you has any idea about what happened.

This is something that you should pregame and decide how you will handle it as a crew. I will say that I once watched a WNBA game in which one of the officials was a former poster to this forum. Ball went out on the endline, opposite the Lead. Lead looked to Slot, Slot looked to Trail. No one knew and no one guessed. They jumped it up.

It does happen; and different folks handle it different ways. I don't like admitting that I didn't see it, but hey, I didn't see it.

And BTW, no, I don't know what you mean by "the obstructed eye sign". :)

Here's how I pregame this sitch, maybe it will answer your question, maybe not...

When I miss an OOB I'm responsible for I'll ask for help. If you have it then you make the call. If you don't have it we'll get together and decide if there's a need to go to alternating possession. I wouldn't say I would never go to the AP, never is a long time. But if there's no other way then that's what I'll do.

My pregame conference about that subject goes something like this:

"If I need help on a line call, I will blow my whistle and raise my hand and look at you. If you are 51% sure of the direction, sell it!"

I can't remember the last time I went to AP.

Z

OK, OK the sun was really bright in the gym and I covered my eyes to shield the sun and I missed the ball going OOB. Is that better?;)

I understand as a varsity official you might not want to go to AP. I guess that admits that all three officials missed the call. But, I'm not to comfortable with the notion that in the same situation in JV game with 2 officials you get the same call. Whats wrong with admitting that you did not see the correct call, and go to AP instead of getting it wrong and penalizing the wrong team. So lets say the same situation 2 seconds left in game, game tied, you still give the 51% call zebraman?

Yep, 51% sure means that my partner thinks that they know whose ball it is. We "think" we know on every call we make right? If my partner absolutely did not see it and neither of us know, we go AP. I'm not suggesting a blind guess.

You are correct that it's much easier in 3-person. I can remember a couple of AP's in my games in this sitch when our state used to do 2-person a few years ago.

Z

I can't believe that some officials are insinuating to a second year official "make up a call to CYA." The AP is there for this exact reason. Missing an OOB can be due to so many reasons it isn't funny. The fans may not like it, but I have yet to have a varsity or jv coach complain for using AP to resolve the issue. The main Point of Emphasis for the last serveral years has been sportsmanship! What are saying about ourselves here?

Personally, I'm with you Fishinref. I can see both sides of this argument, but I cannot bring myelf to make a call that I did not SEE! But, I'm not a varsity official and do not have three sets of eyes on the situation. I'm not sure I get the 51% reference what if I was 49% do I still MAKE UP the call. I guess my arguments are a little foolish but I'm only second year ref up against the REF GODS on this forum.

Calm down, you're making an @ss of yourself.

:rolleyes:

Good grief...you asked a question, people responded. If you don't understand Z's response, or if you disagree with it - fine. Discuss it more...but what an assinine comment to make just because you don't like Z's answer to the question you posted...

As to the original question and response, no you shouldn't "make up a call", but if you're pretty sure it went off of blue, then call it white...having a coach yell "Hey, you guys missed that" is a whole lot better than "Hey, there's two (or three) of you out there and you can't see who it went off of!"...if you really haven't got a clue who touched it last, go with the AP - but realize that going with the AP might be doing exactly what you are afraid of doing in the original post - screwing one of the teams out of their rightful possession...it happens.

Chris as a young official you need to understand that many of the things we do as officials carry a philosophy behind them. Not everyone agrees with every philosophy. There are philosophies about blocked shots, multiple fouls, hand checking, rebounding and even dribbling. Not all of us will agree what is the right thing to do in all of these cases. I can tell you that I have never personally ever gone with an AP arrow on a simple out of bounds play. I do not feel like this is something you should nit pick. Pick someone and move on. You start calling AP on out of bounds calls they will expect you to do that every close call.

Peace

If you go to the arrow, you may still penalize the wrong team, so what't the difference?

I agree with the last post: We make dozens of OOB calls a night. I know I can't say with 100% surety, 100% of the time, which team should get the ball. But I make the call, and sell it if I have too. And the only time I'm going to look at my partner for the call, is if the ball goes out on my sideline or baseline, when I'm primarily looking off ball, for example. If we do need to go to the AP, I or my partner will sell that, thumbs pointing up HARD, yelling jump! That way at least they know you dont know with conviction.