looking for any advice on officiating

[JRutledge]

Originally posted by Jeremy40
hey fellas

i am 23 years old and have officiated all different ages. all the games i have officiated have been scrimmages and rescheduled games. i am now an official, official. i am just looking for any tips, or advice, that you only get from experience and not something that is in a book. so for all the old cats and crazy veterans give me something that will make me a better conductor of the greatest sport ever invented (next to golf).

thanks guys
jeremy

Well this might not be what you want to hear, but reading things in a book is not such a bad thing. There are several books that can give you a much, much easier chance at learning things about officiating. Reading certain books and magazines that deal with officiating (and internet sites too) can add years to your experience. There is no substitute for floor experience, but classroom and reading can make you a better prepared official in a game.

The best thing I can tell you outside of that is set specific goals. You will go no where if you do not set very specific goals. If you want to go to the NBA and officiate, you need to find out everything you need to do to set that goal. No different if you goal is just to do the State Championship at the Junior High level. You still need to set specific goals.

Then once you have set those goals, you must do many things to achieve them. If you want to be a HS Varsity Official, you might want to go to games and talk to these guys when you get the chance. High School Officials are much more easily accessible and you will find that many of them have knowledge of doing college, mainly because many of them either are college officials or they know many personally. HS Officials also know of associations and have many contacts with people that can get you to all kinds of levels of basketball or officiating in general.

There is many more things but I need to go to sleep. Got to get up early in the morning.

Peace