Are you on some type of narcotic today? Or maybe decided this would be a good morning to start drinking heavily? Seriously. When you get a call on the go-to-guy phone to offer advize to newbies at the end of the season facing their first 3 whistle contest you advocate chaos? After all, it aint gonna confuse anybody but your 2 partners...and you of course. But go ahead, give it a shot. We finally agree Scrappie. Here are written some wise words.

When I started 3-person, I heard about 50 different philosophies on when to rotate. The somebody told me, "just go when it looks like the C will need help." That works for me.

You are a wise man and must be a Yankees fan.

GREAT advice. Thanks, z-man.

Do you really believe that 5 rotations in a possession is chaos? :confused: What are you picturing is going to happen? You think the new guy is just going to run wind sprints from sideline to sideline as the new Lead? Cats and dogs living together? Mass hysteria!!

Have you considered decaf? :p

Well, I'm not going to be confused. And I don't honestly think that you are either. You might start to get annoyed, I guess. And in that case, you're going to talk at halftime and say, "You know what, you might be overly-aggressive."

Is "chaos" having 2 leads in transition? Heck, I've seen that happen in a college game. It happens even to experienced officials.

The problem with new guys working 3-man is that they are overly-tentative about rotating. If you tell them to rotate when there's even the slightest need to do so, they will maybe rotate enough.

I'm going to withdraw from this thread now. I've made my thoughts as clear as I can, and you think they're stupid. We're obviously not going to come to common ground. If anybody wants my advice, I think you have it. If anybody disagrees, I have no problems with that either.

Works for me, Z. :)

If my partner rotates 5 times in one 35 second period I'm going to stop rotating with him. Because it's obvious he doesn't have a feel for the game, the team's offense or the wear & tear on my sneakers. ;) Not nearly that bad...he'll just spend the game trying to process your advize instead of referee'ing the game. Decaf gives you cancer. No, it's not your advize that's stupid, it's you (just a joke, relax. See, happy face --> :) ).

To sum up: Scrappie's advize is to rotate whenever you should but don't rotate if you think you might be rotating too much. But whatever you do remember to rotate, unless you don't have to. But even if you don't have to then you might want ot anyway.

Got it. Damn it's good having the go-to guy here to work this out with.

Dan wins.<i></i>

At the risk of getting Dan on my case...one of the oversimplified things that I was told early on to get me started was if you find yourself looking across the lane, get your *** across the lane. Obviously there's more to it, but that was a decent starting point in my opinion.

cue Rocky music...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...03/Aybabtu.png

:p

Now THAT is great advice!

You should put in for go-to-guy in your area.

(And obviously you're a Yankees fan.)

Look for the competitive post matchups. It's usually ball side, but not always. Most teams favor one side over the other. Get to know their favorite "go to" plays and just referee what is in front of you.