AAU time again
 

Had a couple of AAU games this weekend, including a 15u championship. I mention this because 2 players of the winning team looked closer to 25 than 15. But there it is.

Play1: A1 dribbling downcourt. The ball bounces about 3 feet over his head, he regains control and continues on. Parents have a stroke TRAVEL! TRAVEL!! BLOW THE WHISTLE!!

Stupid monkeys.

Play 2: A1 shoots from 10 feet out, the ball's in the air and there's a loud slap. Gawd knows who or what was slapped but it wasn't the shooter. Parents (other team btw) can not believe their own ears. HOW CAN YOU MISS THAT! BLOW THE WHISTLE!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!!!?

Oh well, they both hate us. Stupid monkeys.

Best part of the game: eventual losing coach puts his arm around my waist and says "You're doing a great job, but I don't think the other coach is very happy with you."

Now there's a coach who knows how to work an official!

Sometimes I need to be reminded why I don't work a single basketball game from March till November. And then someone is kind enough to do it for me.

This may be very naive of me, but we don't have AAU or anything like it where I come from. Why are AAU games full of expontentially more insane people than high school games? What is it (or isn't it) about this brand of basketball?

Everybody thinks their kid is the next Michael Jordan! It's one game after another where you are in close proximity to the fans and you see the same teams two times or more in one day (maybe back to back). For some reason, the fans are stupid, loud, and you notice them more. I guess not having a quality gym administrator is part of it. Sometimes the gym administrator will have a kid playing in the league and then he or she might get mad at you too! I've seen it happen!

Usually parents pay for their kids to play or they are sponsored by a company to go across the country to play basketball during the off season. AAU does not have the standards that a school will hold and someone who is not in the education system or has any training with kids or coaching can coach an AAU team.

I live in an area where we have a lot of HS leagues that are played. I can work games all summer and not work a single AAU game or tournament. HS leagues are much better to work in my opinion because the players are subjected to the standards of the school and the coach they will see during the school year. The teams are running the same offenses they will see during the season and they are trying to make a spot on the team as compared to trying to prove they are the better player when playing AAU games.

I cannot imagine going all summer long and not working a bunch of basketball. I would rather do that and know I will get paid than waste most of the summer on working baseball and the weather will completely change my daily plans.

Peace

just finished AAU weekend number two.

13U finals boys
team A coach already has one T from my partner and I have talked to him about his antics since then and warned him he will get the second T if he continues intimating that we are calling a one sided game.
4 min to play fourth quarter. -
team A bigman goes to block a shot and bangs bodies with the shooter, He has been warned twice about him antics after calls, he immeadiatly rips his shirt out of his pants and stomps around. Whack-
We are shooting the Technical portion of the Free throws and from Team a Bench in between the attempts the entire gym could hear it, "I hope you can sleep at night after cheating these kids out of their game."
Whack and gone!
he naturally puts on a show on the way out and get applause from his fans.
one team was down 15 at this point (guess who).

AAU basketball brings out the worst in everyone.
earlier in the weekend I end up Whacking a Third grader -
He had something to say after every call - in the third quarter he tries to dribble through two defenders and looses the ball out of bounds - he turns to me and yells "you have to make a call ..D%&n it". I did!

Over all it isn't that bad I had 6 other games that were great not a problem in any - other than the Stupid Monkeys in the stands - but they are every where you just tend to notice them more here because you are usually in smaller venues.
don't pay attention to them and it isn't a problem.
penalize the insanity where you can and play ball..

It's easy. Just think of the officiating money as a nice extra rather than something you rely upon and then it gets quite easy to take a few months off.;)

I dislocated my knee on January 19th and didn't work again until I did my first baseball last Saturday. I've worked three dates since then and the $445 I've earned almost covered my wife's day at Sam's Club and Target yesterday :)

I've been able to say no to all of these tournaments offered me so far. I hope I can hold out. That quick money just speaks to me for some reason. I think once I get the monkey off my back for one season, I'll be good for the rest of my career.

Actually this past weekend the players & coaches were great for me. Didn't complain at all. But that is unusual I'll admit. This kid wasn't born this way, he was trained by his parents & coaches. I once had a 6th grader demand that I "blow the f'ing whistle". I ejected him. The coach wanted to know why I just couldn't warn him. I told him to grow a f'ing backbone.

I used to say as a joke that AAU fees bought my whistle but not my game management. There are no warnings. :D

My favorite AAU moment was 6th grade girls. One girl (best on her team) kept on complaining after every call. I told her to knock it off, she just said "no" to me and kept complaining, so I T'ed her up.

After the game, the coach asked me what the T was for, and I explained it. He actually thanked me for calling the technical. Turns out the star player was also his daughter and, like many 13 year olds, had been developing quite the attitude.

How does your wife keep it that low? There are trips where I would be happy for that amount.:)

That was at each store?

If at only one store can we wife swap cause mine is good for $150.00 per grand kid and number 8 is on the way?
I can not work enough games to keep up with her.

My point is the basketball games are not going to get cancelled. If I have a baseball game in the afternoon and it rained the night before, I do not have to wonder or make 20 phone calls to find out if the game is cancelled.

I also go to a lot of camps so I want to see some basketball before and even after the camps are over to work on things or just to see more plays. I just do not have to work AAU to do that.

Peace

Nah, total. She's not a spendy person, so I wonder what she bought yesterday. I didn't even ask, to be honest.

I just don't love basketball that much anymore. I enjoy working the season and work hard on the court, but once it's done, I'm happy to work nothing but baseball till late August.

My dislocated knee caused me to do a little soul searching. I'm pretty sure I'll come back for basketball next season, but I'm still not 100% certain. A few months off between baseball/football (March till late October) and the following year is looking more attractive to me each season.

I feel similarly about baseball and have for some years now. When the baseball season ends in May and when my last playoff game is over, I am usually thrilled to throw my gear in storage and not see it again for most of the summer. When I do basketball games, I do not have to clean all my gear and do laundry every other night to be ready to work a game. I really do not know why I got this way because I played baseball longer when I was a kid and love the game. It might be the way I work baseball games and the fact that every day I can work. Half of the games get cancelled due to weather or we have to change fields at the last minute. I also like the fact that all that running during the summer keeps me in good shape most of the off season. Basketball is just more of a challenge in my mind.

Peace

If you're going to work this kind of ball. You're going to have to step it up as an official. AAU ball is where we separate the boy's from the men, the real officials from the fake officials. Officials that say they don't work this ball is because they can't handle it. It's too hot in the kitchen for them. Now, I'm going to tell you what you need to do here but b4 I do that, let me say a few words about AAU ball.

AAU ball is some of the best ball out here. Parents who have the money or the desire to see there kid play the best talent get into AAU. You can best believe that these teams are not going to get on an airplane and travel to other states to play unless they got the best group of players they can assemble. The next thing is kids who are not academically inclined, in other words they would not make the HS team but are still gifted athletically play AAU ball. AAU or traveling bb is heavily controlled by the parents who are your fans and coaches. I watched a 12U boys game yesterday that was awesome. I'm talking 6 grade ball here, one kid could dribble the pill better than the And1 games you see on ESPN, then dish it to his player underneath the basket for a layup, that's fantastic(!!) to see at that age level and imagine if you are ref'ing it. Not all of the games are like this but if you stick around long enough you will eventually get some good games to work.

Okay, ref'ing an AAU game. The stuff you do for high school games is not enough at this level. You got to step it up a notch. The part where they say don't talk to the fans, throw that out. The first thing you have to do in my opinion is to get control of your gym. They don't pay you enough to listen to this crap. If the fans are way way out of line, you stop the game and you tell the fans you need to hold it down a little bit. If you can't do that, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. Be polite. More often than not, this will bring people back into prospective. I'm not going to go any further then this because if they don't do what you tell them to do, you know what's next. Another thing that I do that really helps me is when I have a questionable play like the high dribble and everybody's screaming for CARRY or travel, I'll communicate my no-call to them by saying NO and shaking my head. The fans and even the coaches see that I have a ruling on the play. More often than not, they're okay with that. What fuels the fire is when you don't see it. But if you see it and acknowledge it, they immediately let it go. Try that once or twice and tell me if it doesn't help. I do this in my HS games and once the coach sees I had a ruling on the play, they let it go. If you go the HS route and not say anything to the fans, you're making it worse and they get even madder and depending on how pissed off they get. They may wait for you outside. Me, I have to have complete control of my gym and I'm taking this control. I also work harder than most officials, even at these games. When the fans see that, I get a lot of lee-way and they tend to do what I ask them to do.

Stupid monkeys.

Edited scrapper. Excellent idea.

MJ, just a request, but could you edit your post to remove OS's crap? No reason to have to sift through it twice. If you don't really want to, feel free to direct Dan_ref's comment to me :)

HAHAHAQHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH!!!!!!!
LLLOOOOOLLLLLL!!!!!!
ROFLROFLROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Whew!!!!)

That was the best laugh I've had since..........

Where do you come up with this stuff??????

This is why I just ignore his posts.

Peace

You're welcome...

Allow me to paraphrase Old School so those of you who don’t want to read the whole thing can know what he said.

"AAU is the highest level of ball I've ever done, so I think it's the best basketball out there. Those of you who don't work AAU are avoiding it because you can't handle it. You need to be the man and show everyone in the gym you are boss. You silly high school refs and college refs couldn't handle it."

"PS Stop drinking the kool-aide."

RecLeague Ronnie never fails to entertain.....even though he doesn't mean to.

As usual, real officials should ignore everything he says.

What are we ignoring? :D

You paraphase but that's not what I meant. AAU is not the highest ball I've ever work but I have had some outstanding games there. Sometimes the best games are not always the games that draw the most fans or the most attention. However, you do need to take care of business in these games and if you got crazy stuff like the OP stated going on in your games, you're not taking care of business. I'm not attacking just HS or college ref's, that's the way you took it. There are more referee's working AAU and lower level basketball than there are in HS and college. Also, this is a business for quite a few professionals in the summer. I do feel that some of you college officials think you're too good to work AAU ball and that's ashame because the AAU and the players could really use you and your talent working some of these games.

Please define what is a real official?

Everyone else but you. Aka know as the people who own rulebooks and know how to read and use them.

Clear enough now?

1):D

2) What do you mean <b>"you college officials"</b>?:confused: Aren't you the one that's posted here many times telling us that you yourself <b>are</b> a college official? Or were you....gasp.....lying to us?:eek:

Gee, I must be confused. You mentioned in <b>SO</b> many threads that you were a real, live honest-to-goodness college official, I kinda believed you for a second. You're right, JMO, I shoulda known better than to do that.

http://forum.officiating.com/showthr...99#post=367199
http://forum.officiating.com/showthr...22#post=366722
http://forum.officiating.com/showthr...91#post=366691

AAU. Technical Fouls. Old School. It all runs together for me.

Only 20? Slow year for you.

What conferences, may I ask?

How many NBA games?

I think they were in the EA Sports conference, JR.

You can ask all you want, but if you quite drinking the kool-aide, it might not be that important to you. Real officials got better things to do with there time.

I Can't Stand It Any Longer ...
 

I've been waiting a few months for somone else to say this, but I can't stand it any longer, so:

It's "Kool-Aid®" not "Kool-Aide"

Where's our Forum "Spelling Guy" been, on vacation?

OK, my initial response to you was deleted by a mod (for those who missed it, I told OS to simply FO).

Let's see...how can I express my absolute disdain, disregard and disresepct for OS in a way that will not get mod-deleted....I know. Express myself in terms endorsed by Editor in Chief and Head Bottle Washer Carl his-self. So OS, try this:

Shut up you prick.

Come on guys. We're all one big team here. Can't we all just chill out and have a cup of coffee?

Old School is a troll, not part of our <i>one big team</i>. He deserves what he gets.