How much do you talk?

[tomegun]

I have noticed more and more officials that do not say much during a game. Let me explain in more detail.

A travel occurs during a game. Some officials will hit the whistle and give the indication; some officials will hit the whistle and say, "Traveling" while giving the indication.

A coach calls a timeout. Some officials will immediately indicate whether it is a 30 second or 60 (75) second timeout before reporting to the table. Some officials will hit the whistle, barely say it is a timeout and have their partners in limbo (which way do I go?) until they report it to the table.

A foul occurs. Some officials will hit the whistle, go to the table and are barely audible during this whole process. Some officials will hit the whistle, immediately verbalize the foul ("Blue 32") and then verbalize - loudly and clearly - at the table. On a side note, when reporting to the table "three, two" are two different numbers and could create a problem with the table. On the other hand, "Thirty two" is clearly...#32.

Anyway, how much talking is too much and too little? I have actually never heard an evaluator say an official is talking too much, but many officials are just quiet as a church mouse. We talk about communicating with coaches quite a bit, but not really about verbally communicating better with the table and our fellow officials. At least not that I remember reading.