Whistle upon taking the court pregame
 

I had an official tell me that when you and your partner take the floor, you are supposed to blow your whistle. I was told it is in the officials manual, but have not been able to locate it. Is this standard practice?

Not where I work games.

Are you officiating games in a parade?:D

I thought it sounded pretty odd. I really do not want to bring any attention to myself when I walk on the floor. But since he mentioned it was in the book, I thought I would ask. I am still looking, but it wasnt under pregame duties.....

No, it's not standard, nor is it in the manual.

It is done in some areas to tell the teams to stop dunking.

You're new (iirc) to officiating. Go watch some games and see if the other varsity officials do this. Follow their lead.

It's fairly common in the DFW area. I was told that we do it to help prevent the pregame T for dunking the ball.

With all due respect, that's one of the oddest things I've read here.

Another great method to prevent this is for the coaches to teach their kids not to dunk during warmups.

Next time someone pulls something like this right out of their arse, ask THEM to show it to you in the book. When they conveniently tell you that they don't have their books with them, pull your books out and hand them to the guy...that's what Bhuck Elics would do.

Almost sounds like a joke. Which got me to thinking, has anyone ever been the recipient or masterminded a joke on some other official. Such as baby powder in the whistle, etc....

An even better method is to T the coach once and put the seatbelt on him....last time anyone on his team dunks in pregame...

Sorry, T the KID once..

That's okay. The coach still gets a seat belt. :D

Yeah, it's done here in Houston also. The intent is to make the players aware the officials are entering the visual confines of the court, so if they are dunking they will stop. And the boys are even worse.:D

There is a ref in our area who I got my first games from years back, and I had him as my partner my fourth or fifth date and was really intimidated.

We had a wild game in a wild gym at a wild school and during a timeout he came over to me and stood directly in front of me poking my chest reminding me of a mechanic or something. We come out of the time out, he inbounds the ball as I go to grab my whistle.........................gawn. He is soiling himself laughing so hard. pretty funny and he's good at it too.