O My What Am I Getting Myself Into
 

I told an assignor that I would ref the senior olympics, what am i getting into? anything I should know, whats the competition like. O yeah at least I will be able to say I refed the olympics right?

Senior or Special Olympics???

Senior why?

Sorry, I'd never heard of the Senior Olympics before. We don't have that, but there is the odd Special Olympics bball events that officials are asked to work.

I can't help give insight into your upcoming event, but best of luck!

The players will be over-the-hill athletes who can't do what they used to but don't believe that. They will blame <b>you</b> for them getting old. Be prepared for a buncha b!tching.

That's why we usually leave these games to our senior referees like JR. :D

My father has been participating in the National Senior Olympics for years, unfortunately he just has his prostate removed this week and will probably never get that opportunity again. He participated in Tucson, New Orleans, Orlando (I think), Virginia Beach and Pittsburgh. It's 3-on-3 basketball and my dad has always represented the state of New Jersey in his age groups. I think it's broken down to 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69. Not sure what the ceiling is. I never recall my dad complaining about the officiating. His best national finish was 5th place, but last year he coached the age group below his to the championship in their age group. Seems the winning formula is a post player with some skills combined with someone who can knock down jumpers. As you can imagine fatigue plays a factor and probably leads to some hard fouls. I've played ball with some of my dad's friends (some of whom also have participated in Sr Olympics) and they will commit a hard foul in a heartbeat.

Thanks thats the kind of info I am looking for.

That's the winning formula for a couple NBA teams as well-like the Heat.

the diffrence is the heat do more dunks? :p

A number of years back, I had the opportunity to ref the Nike World Master's Games here in the Portland/Vancouver area...teams from all over the world. Age groups were U-35, U-40, U-45, etc., all the way up to Over 65...it was a blast. Competition was good, play was better at younger ages, but still good at older ages...the most fun I had was doing the Men's Over 65 Championship game - a team from Belarus vs. a team from Greece...or maybe the most fun were the Women's U-35 games I did involving the team from Australia - they were still wearing those one-piece unitards!!

My coach told me there were a LOT of people seeing a few games during a cup here in gothenburg say 25-30 years ago. A team from Hong Kong came here to play, and they played in short(!) skirts, a lot of people suddenly became intrested in basketball (wich isn't big in sweden)