Inexperienced Partner

[actuary77]

I had a "not so good" (to put it lightly) experience yesterday at a Sophomore Boys shootout. This is my 5th year officiating HS ball. I found myself in unfamiliar territory as my partner has only been officiating basketball for 3 yrs. So I was all of a sudden the "experienced" one.

My partner was a much older gentleman (I'm 30) and has been officiating football for 10 yrs. He definitely had the attributes of an official (assertive, confident, etc., nice guy too) but his basketball officiating skills were sub par. Just a few things:

• He would signal a foul with an open hand. During the first time out, I advised him to use a closed fist when signaling fouls... he never did. I was not being nitpicky here but everytime he would blow his whistle, I wouldn't know what he called and whether to switch or not and where I should go.
• I saw him a lot of times "ball watching" when he was L and the ball was above the 3-pt line on top. It was a concern bec no one was watching the other players off ball in what turned out to be a very physical game.
• There were a bunch of plays when we had dual coverage on rebounding/shooting plays when he called fouls on defenders who had legal position and just stood there (offense initiated contact), blocks that were clean (he acknowledged to me during timouts that he did miss some of those) and in more than one instance, call 3-seconds after the coach just screamed "3-seconds!!!"
• He would change sides as L and never went back as we went the other way. So there were times we were on the same side of the floor. Obviously, I couldn't as T change sides in the middle of the play.
• Whistle baseline OOB when he's the Trail and OOB on the sideline that's not his

I definitely am far from the most perfect basketball official out there and I know I still have a lot to learn. But I definitely had a bad game, partly (or primarily?) because of him. It was further aggravated by very vocal coaches and players using their hands to defend all the time. (I think we called like 40 fouls total) It was just very disappointing bec I just had a good pair of games that morning when the coaches, AD and even some parents came up to us (obv diff partner) praising us for a job well done.

This game definitely lived up to the cliche that "you're only as good as your partner is". I was just wondering how you would have handled a situation like this.

[JRutledge]

If you do this long enough we will all have bad partners from time to time. Having said all of that you cannot make use that as an excuse for your ability or the job you do personally. All you really can ever control is your actions. If it was that bad, what did you discuss at halftime or in between quarters? It sounds like to me as if you just worried about everything he was doing and you forgot to do your job. If that is the case, you better improve that soon or people will judge you just as incompetent as your partner is.

It really sounds like to me as if you had no pre-game. I really feel that way if your partner is crossing the lane and not going back. You have to go over something in a pre-game (I do not need your cut and paste Billy ) so that you can at the very least figure out the experience level of your partner and you can figure out before game time what you might have to do.

Peace

[mick]

Originally Posted by actuary77

He would change sides as L and never went back as we went the other way. So there were times we were on the same side of the floor. Obviously, I couldn't as T change sides in the middle of the play.

Actually, actuary77, you may, one day, find a partner, with whom you mesh with so closely, that the Lead may force a cross-over of the Trail to achieve the disired coverage. And it will feel "special".

Originally Posted by actuary77

This game definitely lived up to the cliche that "you're only as good as your partner is". I was just wondering how you would have handled a situation like this.

Get in.
Get done.
Get out.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

It really sounds like to me as if you had no pre-game.

JRutledge: You hit the nail right on the head. Experienced partners who have worked with each other many times may, I repeat, may, be able to get away with little, or, possibly, no pregame. For officials who have't been around since the Mesozoic Era, especially involving partners who haven't worked together a lot, the pregame becomes a very important part of the assignment.

[actuary77]

JRutledege and BillyMac... we did have some pregame. That's how I found out that I was the "experienced" one. So I made sure I went over the important things... switching on all fouls, calling handchecks, etc. But in pre-game, he seemed to know everything. He was even bringing up things that I didn't think of initially. He even was upfront that he had a few things he wanted to focus on and improve. Like I said, he was pretty confident, having been a football official for 10+ years.

It was just a case of knowing the stuff in his head but couldn't translate it in his actions. Obviously, I didn't anticipate that he would have problems with basic mechanics. Like I said, I mentioned the foul signal and told him (politely) not to watch on-ball when it's not in his area. He did acknowledge that, but he still kept doing it.

I thought I was respectful enough not to scream at him and tell him "DO NOT WATCH BALL!" or something like that. Or during the game, motion with my hands where he should go. That would not be good as the coaches and fans would see. The coaches already know as they have whispered to me that he was quite inexperienced. The game was quite physical already and the coaches were already questioning many of our calls, so his inexperience just exacerbated the problem.

But point well taken... I must admit, I was pretty tired since these were my 3rd and 4th games of the day after a long week. I should have tried harder to concentrate more on my job and not get too distracted by his.

[Freddy]

At the very least, be sure to discreetly communicate your concerns to your assignor(s). It would be a sad situation if, with a lack of knowledge of this partner's lack of abilities, they were to assign him to games which would be over his head. Sounds like middle-school level would be a great place for him to improve if matched with guys who'd take the time to mentor him. All this might be a moot point if your coaches do the rating. They wouldn't give him marks comeasurate with this level, would they?

[Mark Padgett]

Originally Posted by actuary77

exacerbated

WOW!!! You get two thumbs up from me for not only spelling this word correctly, but using it correctly in a sentence. I'm impressed! And you're only in your fifth year?

[TheOracle]

Do the best that you can for the game, and control what you can control. If you can find a way to minimize huge mistakes, and catch all overly physical plays, you'll make the best of it. Over the years, you'll see a lot of people never get much better. You just play every hand as hard as you can. There's no folding in basketball officiating!

[Texas Aggie]

It really sounds like to me as if you had no pre-game.

Not to me. It sounds like some guys I've worked with that pay no attention to what is said in pregame or other conversations.