Worked with an Ohio Class 1 Var Ref 3 games and....

[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

No it was not me. If I had been working with Lark's partner I can assure you that I would have been readjusting my partner's attitude during half time of the seventh grade game. I will admit that sometimes during jr. H.S. and freshmen games my partner and I will use the college mechnic of no long switches on non-shooting fouls. But I ain't as young as I use to be.

But on a more serious note, nothing steams me more than veteran officials showing up to collect a paycheck for a jr. H.S. DH. Yes, jr. H.S. games require good game managament and sometimes there are a lot of things that we do not see in a varsity or college game. But I use a dual approach to jr. H.S. games. First, these players deserve 100% professionalism from my partner and me. Of course, we have to officiate the game according to the skill of the players but we must to that within the spirit of the rules. Second, jr. H.S. games are paid practice under game conditions. In a jr. H.S. game you might see a weird play a couple of times that you might see only once every two years at the varsity or college level. But if you see it a number of times over the course of a season at the jr. H.S. level it does not suprise you at the upper levels of play when it can suprise you. And thirdly (I know I said dual approach), I get to officiate many times with my first year students. This is an opportunity to see them work and to work with them under game conditions. Plus, it is fun officiating jr. H.S. games, and sometimes difficult to emotionally as a father whose oldest son will be playing jr H.S. basketball next school year. When a player goes down hurt or misses a layup that could have won the game for his team I am affected by it knowing that next year I could be that payer's father in the stands.