Excessive Timeout

[Old School]

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

Terrible thinking, Tommy. Maybe OK for middle school ball--sometimes- but certainly never for any higher levels. Game flow in these situations has got diddly squat to do with diddly squat also. Plain and simply, you're making up your OWN rules while ignoring very clearly written actual rules. That's never a good idea.

50% correct in that you never want to do this in a higher level game, especially if you're just starting out. Got nothing to do with ignoring actual rules because officials do this all the time and your assigner or evaluator told you to do just that. However, my concern is one day you might goof this up trying to apply game management when you should just call the game, call what you see.

What I think you should look at is the cost or consequences of erroring. What are the consequences if you just make the call? Zero, because the player called it. However, what if you thought Team A didn't have any TO's and they actually had one left, and the player calls it and you don't grant it, because you come up with, juggling the ball didn't have control, foot was on the line, something you made up because you thought they didn't have any. What kind of trouble are you in now when you give the ball to the other team and they score to win the game? What are your consequences now? Knowing that the guys that assign these games typically do it for life. You could be banned forever making a mistake like that. Not worth it to me when you consider the odds. When the stakes are high, just call what you see, and believe it or not, it's easier! Don't have to work as hard.