Over-rule your partner?
 

A1 bringing ball across division line under moderate pressure. I am trail (2-whistle), across the court with clear view of the play. Ball and one foot are in frontcourt. One foot has never left back-court. A1 then dribbles ball again in backcourt.

My partner blows the whistle from the lead and calls a backcourt violation.

He is wrong. He is calling out of his area. I have nothing but court between me and the play and have been watching (and counting) the entire time.

So what do you do? Get together with him and let him know one foot never left the backcourt? Do nothing and talk to him after the game?

What do I do?....

I get with my partner and ask him what he saw. If he can't talk me out of what I saw...then we go with an inadvertant whistle and give the ball back to the team that almost got screwed.

A couple of things. One, find another partner you can trust. Two, meet with him after he blows the whistle, tell him emphatically that the one foot of the player in question was in the backcourt at the time of his whistle. Tell him he will need to explain to each coach that he had an inadvertent whistle and that play will resume at the mid-court with the same team retaining control. If he is allowed to call that play from the lead and you're willing to accept, then whatever comes your way from that situation you will deserve.

I would definitely get together to try and make the call right or at least try for the inadvertant whistle. I certainly wouldn't argue about it though. If he is adamant about it, it could get ugly.

All I can say is wow! It is almost impossible for me to believe that a guy came from the lead to get that! How crazy did the coach go?

[QUOTE=BayStateRef]

So what do you do? QUOTE]

Were you working with Ed Hightower?

Had a similar thing happen in a game this past week:

http://forum.officiating.com/showthread.php?t=30171

Fortunately (or not), the coaches (and everybody else in the gym) were too dumb to know the rule, so they were crying for a BC violation anyway.

Having read this, I'm wondering if I shouldn't have done something about it :( It wasn't a game-changing call (the game was a blowout in the end) but you always want to "get it right".....

I'd like to think I'm going to have two discussions with my partner. One would be right away and give him an opportunity to go with an inadvertant whistle. Whether he changes it or not, we're having another talk in the privacy of the dressing room later; and whether he changes his call will have a lot to do with how that second conversation goes.
I'd like to think that's what I'd do. Until I do it, though, I can't say for sure. Being new to the area this year, I'm feeling my way through the season and figuring out who's who. Of course, I haven't had the pleasure of having my partner call BC from the L. :)

Does anyone else realize the contradiction, not in this thread, but on the board about plays like this? If a poster is the lead and sees something, it is OK to go ask your partner a question. If someone is a trail and the lead makes a wrong call then we talk to the lead to try and talk him/her out of the call.

How about this, quit watching the ball, trust your partner and officiate the game. I might live in a vacuum, although that vacuum would have had to be in Arizona, Nevada, Maryland, DC and Mississippi, but high school officials that I've seen just need to worry about keeping things basic and looking in their primary. The honest truth is that for every "game-saving" call officials make in a high school game there are probably 8-10 BS calls they could have made or passed on before then. IMO this is just getting ridiculous.

This is exactly why I posted this.

What I did: I immediately went up to him, told him the girl's foot never left the backcourt. He said OK, yelled out "inadvertant whistle, white ball" and we played on. No problems from the coaches.

I know this guy works a lot of games (youth leagues, men's leagues) solo and I chalked it up to "reflex" on his part. There were other calls during the game that he made in my primary.

Virtually same call happened to me over the weekend. I was T on a 2-man team with A1 bringing ball up the court. She crosses into FC and gets trapped, throws the ball back to A2 who is still in BC. A2 jumps (both feet off the floor when contact with the ball was made) and lands in FC squarely with ball in hand. The L whistles for a BC violation...we conference and agree to disagree, but he does acknowledge it was not his call and defers to me. I say inadvertent whistle and we play on with A getting the ball.

The nice part here was no argument from either bench...in fact, it may have been the only no argument whistle all night.

One of my main arguments concerning this subject is what we talk about as acceptable and not acceptable. There are people reading these posts that are trying to move up in the high school ranks and a continued discussion about ball-watching does not help officials and make the game better. Don't watch the ball and make excuses for it, end of story. Sure, there are no absolutes because the game is never the same twice and things happen. However, no matter how you fix it up, ball-watching is not a good thing for the game.

The rest of my preachy comments deleted.

If I'm reading your post correctly, A1 crosses into FC therefore we now have FC possession by Team A. She passes back to A2 who is still in the BC but jumps, catches the ball, and lands in the FC. That is still a BC violation as A2 still had BC status at the time she caught the ball. In which case, the L was correct on this call.

Can you tell me the rule/case reference for this, please?

Thanks!

Yep, I totally missed it and we discussed it at halftime. He (10+ yrs. experience) allowed me to stick to my guns on the incorrect call (me, total rookie), thinking it would be a learning experience for me to catch grief from one or both benches. Team B was winning by 22 at this point in the game, so he didn't feel like it would negatively impact the outcome by letting me make a mistake and learn from it.

What surprised him the most was no argument from either coach, but the lesson was not lost on me. I have no doubt in a closely contested game, I would have been flamed.