Going opposite...
 

My observation...

Going opposite is nice for the calling official, but not for the poor guy left table side.

At least before the calling official had to sink or swim himself.

I know the whole purpose is to cut down on the conversations, but the coach is still going to want to talk, now it's going to be a guy who may have no idea what the calling official saw.

Thoughts?

Thoughts? Yeah.

After training myself to keep on walking to table side after reporting now I've got to re-learn how to do it the old way. And re-learn where to go as non-calling official.

Who gives a rat's @ss what the coach wants to do. Just because he wants to yap doesn't mean I have to play.

I must admit I'm in the dark on this one.

So the calling official now goes opposite table for Fed?

No. Evidently, he's talking about NCAA.

We went opposite in HS forever until a couple of years ago. It's really no big deal for the new T staying tableside. If the coach is pissed, he's usually more enabled to be a calming influence than the guy who made the call.

If not, stick the coach in the azz and be done with it.

No big deal.

Whew... thanks, Tony. Thought I really missed something!

We discussed this recently in our association. (Girls HS - NCAA rules)
The calling official stays tableside and doesn't go opposite.

Yup, big PITA.

Yup, yup.

The #1 reason that the NCAA is reverting to the calling official going opposite is that the committee believed that the C was not involved in the game and that the L and T were simply flip-flopping on most of the foul calls.

I heard from several people that the change was made because coaches were taking advantage of having the calling official in front of them and complaining way too much. I have heard that from several people including a couple college assignors. Thus the change and also the emphasis on coaches staying in the box this year. Who did you hear that from Nevadaref?

I worked my first men's CC game of the year on Friday night. I almost went tableside twice but corrected it both times. The only time I totally went tableside was a backcourt foul when we were in bonus. Habit outweighed my concentration level on that one. It's going to be interesting to see how I do once the HS season starts and I am going back and forth between 3-person tableside and 3-person opposite regularly.

Be just like two years ago, only the exact opposite. :D

This is the same thing I've heard too.

BTW, there is no reason (I can think of) for the non-calling official to even think about calming a coach down. I have no control over what the coach, a grown man, is going to do or say. They will be responsible for their actions when I'm on table side.

That's NCAA-Men only I believe...aren't the NCAA-W still going tableside?

I didn't say he would "think about calming a coach down". I said he would be a "calming inlfuence" meaning:

1- He wouldn't be defensive because he didn't make the call
2- He wouldn't be able to answer questions because he didn't make the call
3- It would be short discussion because he didn't make the call

His presence in that position as opposed to the calling official is going to change the dynamics of the situation in most instances.

Whether that's why or not, it's true. You can get locked in the opposite slot for a long time. :p

I posted the following back on July 17 on the NFHS forum shortly after returning from a camp with several D1 officials:

It is true that the NCAA is returning to the mechanic of the calling official going opposite the table this coming season.

There were two reasons given for this.
1. The coaches were engaging the officials in too many conversations and it was detracting from the flow and speed of the game.
2. The calling official was mostly becoming the Trail and then the Lead on the subsequent trip, so this official was in the most probable location to make another call. (You have to accept that the Lead official makes most of the calls in the 3-person system for this argument to hold water. That assumption may or may not be true.) It was concluded or perceived that the Center official was not participating very much in the game while the other two officials were making the majority of the calls and simply swapping back and forth. There had to be an off-ball call by the Center to get him into the mix and then the new Center was left out for a while. Right or wrong that is the explanation I was given by the top D-1 guys.


(It was also made clear that the change resulted more from point #2 than point #1.)