My officials won't blow their whistle

[SanSmoothie]

Any advice on how to encourage my youth basketball officials to blow their whistles? I have a few that are a little bit gun shy.

[inigo montoya]

Pay them a per-foul rate?



Didn't say you wanted good advice.

[Coltdoggs]

What level of youth are we talking about...I am on a board for a local rec league that runs grades 3-8...as a ref, I spend 90% of my on court time officiating 5th-8th grade (rec and competitive league/AAU type level) with the occassional off season 16U AAU games...

Lower the level, the harder it is to call because there is so much you can call... My reallity with the lower level is that contact is A-B-C or D All of the above when it comes to fouls...

There are two schools of thought here. Call it if it happens, they need to learn the game and let some stuff go so they can enjoy the game. .the kids just are not understanding and coordinated sometimes to avoid contact and we can blow the whistle just about every trip down the floor at both ends...

When doing the younger kids 5th and lower for rec....I know I have far more tolerance for minor travels/shuffling of the feet...we tend to let a lot of perimeter contact go as incidental unless it really disrupts the dribbler and on shots, we call it pretty tight.

[rainmaker]

Originally Posted by SanSmoothie

Any advice on how to encourage my youth basketball officials to blow their whistles? I have a few that are a little bit gun shy.

Organize a scrimmage where the players are going to work on having absolutely no contact. Tell the refs that they must blow the whistle on any contact at all. It's good for both players and refs.

[Dan_ref]

Originally Posted by rainmaker

Organize a scrimmage where the players are going to work on having absolutely no contact. Tell the refs that they must blow the whistle on any contact at all. It's good for both players and refs.

I can't tell if you're serious or not...

[rainmaker]

Originally Posted by Dan_ref

I can't tell if you're serious or not...

Which would you prefer?

[Dan_ref]

Originally Posted by rainmaker

Which would you prefer?

Thank you.

[Coltdoggs]

Originally Posted by Dan_ref

Thank you.

Dan...you owe me a new monitor! HAHAHA!

[rainmaker]

Originally Posted by Dan_ref

Thank you.

Cute, Dan, real cute.

[Adam]

Tell them if they don’t get their heads out of their collective azzes, you'll bring in volunteer parents.
Tell them to eat before they come to the game so they don’t have to swallow their whistles during the game.
If you think the pressure is too much for them, have a group therapy session and discuss empathy or something.

Seriously, maybe get out there and ref a game with each of them. Do it three whistle, if you want. Get together with them during timeouts and intermissions to discuss individual plays. It might be that officiating isn't for them, who knows.

[rainmaker]

Originally Posted by Snaqwells

Seriously, maybe get out there and ref a game with each of them. Do it three man, if you want.

Unless there are some girls, in which case use three whistle.

[just another ref]

Originally Posted by Snaqwells

Tell them if they don’t get their heads out of their collective azzes, you'll bring in volunteer parents.

Good luck with that one. In my experience, it is easier to get parents to volunteer to clean toilets than to officiate anything.

[rainmaker]

Originally Posted by Dan_ref

I can't tell if you're serious or not...

Well, seriously, of course officials shouldn't be blowing the whistle on any or all contact, but doing an exercise like this helps get them quickly through that not-blowing-the-whistle-enough stage of development. It only takes a few minutes of this for an official to learn to be unafraid of the sound of the whistle and to learn to look for contact. Then they can start to judge what to call and what not to.

[Chess Ref]

Originally Posted by rainmaker

Well, seriously, of course officials shouldn't be blowing the whistle on any or all contact, but doing an exercise like this helps get them quickly through that not-blowing-the-whistle-enough stage of development. It only takes a few minutes of this for an official to learn to be unafraid of the sound of the whistle and to learn to look for contact. Then they can start to judge what to call and what not to.

When I first started I had the no whistle thingie. I was so focused on ADV/DIS that I called nothing , which made sense cause I didn't know how to apply ADV/DIS was on a BB court. Somewhere somebody told me to call ALL contact till it was painful and then I would figure out what contact was really a foul. It took me about, if I remember correctly, about 2 quarters.

I work with alot of brand new officials and just had a total new man. No rec,no adult, no nothing. I told him,in the 2nd qtr, to call all contact he saw. It seemed to help by the 4th he was calling the obvious, which was so much better than his 1st Qtr of no whistles.....

[Coltdoggs]

Originally Posted by Chess Ref

When I first started I had the no whistle thingie. I was so focused on ADV/DIS that I called nothing , which made sense cause I didn't know how to apply ADV/DIS was on a BB court. Somewhere somebody told me to call ALL contact till it was painful and then I would figure out what contact was really a foul. It took me about, if I remember correctly, about 2 quarters.

I work with alot of brand new officials and just had a total new man. No rec,no adult, no nothing. I told him,in the 2nd qtr, to call all contact he saw. It seemed to help by the 4th he was calling the obvious, which was so much better than his 1st Qtr of no whistles.....

This is really pretty good advice...I guess it's easy for me to say ad/disad but I've been calling games for 7 years and understand it...I think I will use this with our new guys...Thanks Chess!