Couple issues from the Coach's perspective
 

Some issues that have cumulated over the season from the Coach's perspective, and I'd like some neutral officials opinions.

First, in an away JUCO game in Arizona this year, our team was basically "screwed" by the scorers table. During the game, our book was on the bench keeping tabs of fouls, and every time a foul was called, he was listening/watching the officials foul call, and then double checking with the scoreboard display. At halftime, we have our #4 with 2 fouls, #14 with 1, and #40 with 4 (bad day). When we come out for the 2nd half, a foul is called on #14, and she all of a sudden has 4 fouls. We have the game stopped to check with the official book, and she says no mistakes were made...Albeit a moot point considering we won. But after review of the tape, the book was completely wrong.

In another game, we were in Dallas, and the referee's didn't think much of our appeals for uniform violations by the other team. NCAA changed rules this year disallowing tights and different colored headbands, and after asking, they said those weren't real rules...same game, kick ball occurs, shot clock was at 3, and they reset to 30, and the rules state that when the clock is down to 14 or lower, the clock resets to 15. Appealed again, said it really didn't matter...

Just some thoughts on how these situations should be handled considering they are out of town officials, since we know where to call if something happens at home.

Hi Coach. Welcome to the forum. Here's my very brief thoughts.

1) Have your book sit at the table next to the home book. It may make it a little more difficult to get some info to the bench, but you will never get that situation again if your scorer is double-checking the home book after every foul and basket.

2) Nothing you can do. Rule mis-applications happen. Unless you know the local assignor, you just have to live with it and move on. Sorry, but it's true.

Nice to know there are some intelligent officials out there who can just tell it like it is. I thank you. One last thing though, as bad as the officials were in Arizona and Texas, we recently played 3 games in Kansas, and all 3 games were, for lack of a better term, PERFECTLY officiated. So for those of you who ref Juco in Kansas, Kudos.

You know how there are magic words or phrases that instantly turn off certain groups of people? Well, saying "we got screwed" is one of those phrases for officials. Try a more pleasant euphenism.

I would suggest you keep you bookkeepr at the table next to the home scorekeeper. Something I personally do when checking with the table at various points in the game is to ask if both scorekeepers both have the same players in foul trouble.

Manhandled?
Pushed around?
Worked over?
Robbed?
Jobbed?

Well, I tried to be as nice as possible... sorry if I turned you off... :-p

Hey...what's that smell...??? Oh yeah, I know...

http://www.filespace.org/brentdax/troll.gif

If it just so happens that it's not worked out for the bookkeepers to sit next to each other then make sure that your bookkeeper checks with the official book at halftime to make sure both books have the same thing.

I agree that in both cases you had some definite officiating problems. About all you can to is report to the conference commissioner and hope they take care of it. As far as the scorer's problems, did the officials even discuss the discrepency between the 2 books? Obviously the official book is what they need to be using, but I would think that big of a difference would have been noticed by someone on the crew. It wouldn't have made a difference in your game, but at least the officials could have reported the scorer's problems to the assignor and then the assignor could contact the school. I had a lower level HS game a few weeks ago where we basically changed the official book to the visitor's book because we had a couple of HS girls taking care of the home book and they were doing a terrible job.

Keep up the good questions. Some officials (including me at times) see the terms "got screwed" and immediately get riled up. You brought up some valid points of things that should have been done right at any level of game, especially college.

Don't worry. I think the point was not necessarily the use of that term as the implication that intentional harm was done to your team. I think it's the very very rare case rather than the norm that an official would willfuly and maliciously call a game a certain way just to harm your team. That's what the term "we got screwed" implies and why officials are so loathe to hear it.

In my first scenario, it was more the home team's book keeper rather than the officials. But I see what you are saying and I can sometimes vouch for your loathing of hearing some "we got screwed". Because I certainly do my fair share of yelling.

Okay, here's the deal. Arizona and Dallas, so you travel quite a bit to do these games. I assume they are not conference games. Games that are non-conference, not a lot you can do about it if the school doesn't go thru an association for it's officials. Next year if you accept those games. You make sure the officials used come from an association in the area that is credible, or you're not making the trip. The table personal in Arizona needs to be better too. Ask for some assurances from the A/D that these issues are resolved, or you're not going there either. Don't just take their word for it either, demand more. That's the way you handle that. I feel for coaches that run into bad officials in a game and there's nothing you can do about it. Now you know why coaches get so frustrated with officials at times. If we're going to get screwed (for lack of a better word), than you're going to get an earful. Leave it at that.

Some people used Clif notes to help in understanding some books. Old School used the Cliffs of Insanity to understand the rule book.

Who did you play in Dallas and when?

The reason I ask is because none of the Dallas county jucos play women's ball. Collin County college does, and they are just north of Dallas in Plano, but I didn't see an Arizona school on their schedule.

Hello Steve. What does the term in RED mean? What is a neutral official?

Had the same situation here. Juco team comes in. School has "hired" work study students to do the book. Kid seems knowledgeable etc. At half when we came back out, the away coach approached. (I knew him from some camps when I had been coaching) He asked to speak with me. He asked if I had called a foul on his #15. I looked, and remembered the kid and foul because he was the only one wearing a headband on that team. I told him I did. He said that the "official" book didn't have any fouls on his #15 but his best player had 4. Also said that another player that should have had a foul didn't show it in the book - but admitted that his best player did have 3.

I told him that while I understood his frustration - and that I knew that I had called a foul on his #15 - I didn't know where they might have placed that foul. (like on his best player) Since I didn't have direct knowledge about where they placed it about the only thing I could do is to put a foul in the book for his #15 but I could not remove any from anyone else as I had no direct knowledge that the official scorekeeper had done anything wrong except not entering the foul for #15. He was not happy with the situation - but understood the delema of the officials. He was very gracious with us.

The second half - we went right to the table when reporting fouls to make sure they were placed in book correctly. Following the game we approached the AD and suggested that he might want to think about a different scorekeeper and explained the situation. The coach said that when fouls were reported, his guy verbally asked scorekeeper "15 - right?" but never actaully looked in the official book. Tough situation - but without direct knowledge nothing an official can do.

Does this mean that you think that all JC officials in AZ and TX do a poor job? :(

Had the same situation here. Juco team comes in. School has "hired" work study students to do the book. Kid seems knowledgeable etc. At half when we came back out, the away coach approached. (I knew him from some camps when I had been coaching) He asked to speak with me. He asked if I had called a foul on his #15. I looked, and remembered the kid and foul because he was the only one wearing a headband on that team. I told him I did. He said that the "official" book didn't have any fouls on his #15 but his best player had 4. Also said that another player that should have had a foul didn't show it in the book - but admitted that his best player did have 3.

I told him that while I understood his frustration - and that I knew that I had called a foul on his #15 - I didn't know where they might have placed that foul. (like on his best player) Since I didn't have direct knowledge about where they placed it about the only thing I could do is to put a foul in the book for his #15 but I could not remove any from anyone else as I had no direct knowledge that the official scorekeeper had done anything wrong except not entering the foul for #15. He was not happy with the situation - but understood the delema of the officials. He was very gracious with us.

The second half - we went right to the table when reporting fouls to make sure they were placed in book correctly. Following the game we approached the AD and suggested that he might want to think about a different scorekeeper and explained the situation. The coach said that when fouls were reported, his guy verbally asked scorekeeper "15 - right?" but never actaully looked in the official book. Tough situation - but without direct knowledge nothing an official can do.

I think this means that he was unhappy with the officiating that his team saw in AZ and TX, and was happy with the officiating that his team saw in KS. He never said anything about "all JC officials" anywhere.

We're all a little touchy over the last couple days. Why? :confused:

Just to answer everyone's questions, we are a JUCO Women's team based in Louisiana. The team we played in Texas was D-III Mountain View College. Although, I'd like to sidestep some of those officials in Arizona, they are ACCAC (Arizona Community College Athletic Conference) officials. And no, not all of the JC officials in TX and AZ were bad. Just over my last three years in the area, they haven't been historically good.

And by neutral officials opinion, I meant questions I could ask referee's with no prior knowledge of the teams in the area

My Experience
 

I was working a game one night when my partner reported a foul sometime in the second quarter. The coach was trying to get his attention, but was unable to. At halftime, my partner went over to the coach to see what it was he had wanted. The coach said that he had called the foul on number 10 and that he had not been in the game at the time. I couldn't believe my partner's reaction. He said, "You are right coach. Who should that foul have been on?" The coach, who was just as surprised as I was, gave him a number. My partner then went to the scorer's table and told them to change the foul.

In a different game we had a very young official scorer. After a couple of mistakes, the coach of the visiting team would ask me to come to the table to check to see if the correct player was credited with the foul. After a stern talking to from me, the scorer did a much better job for the rest of the game.

There was another thing you could have done. You could have checked the other teams book for total fouls on #15, if they where keeping their own book too. In other words, you got 3 sets of books. If the two non-official books matched and the official book didn't, I would change the official book to match the other two books.

#2.) If #15 was there best player, I would have done a little more investigation. Count the total team fouls with the number of fouls listed per player. If it was even, then some player got tagged a foul that shouldn't. This is in the absence of a 3rd book. Here's where I'm going to go into my judgement. It's rare for the best player of a team to pick up 4 fouls in the first half. The coach will sit hit him after 2 and they won't see no more action until the 2nd half. Since I know the kid with the headband had a foul that wasn't in the book, I assume the foul was placed on the wrong player. I would remove the 4th foul from #15 and give it to the kid with the headband. Team fouls are still equal. Explain it to the other coach as a bookkeeping error. Play ball.

Steve: go to gsoa.org and you should find an email address to the individual who assigned the games. You can address your concerns with him.