Frustrated with game administration
 

I had a bad situation last night and hope to get some input from you guys.

7/8th grade boys games. 2nd quarter things start to get ugly. A1 gets a steal and heads the other way and, once he gets into the lane, drops his shoulder and charges right through the (moving) defender. I call a PC foul and a section of the crowd starts riding me for it. No big deal, happens from time to time. Then, one possession later, a steal by A2, as he is driving in....he extends his off arm into the defender, I call another PC foul. As I do so, the school's principal (also the game administrator) runs to half court as I'm heading the other way and tells me that I need to "get control of this game or it's going to get ugly in here". I took that as meaning he thought the home team was getting the short end of the calls (mind you, the foul count was even in the home team's favor!).

Anyhow, a minute or two later, B1 is bringing the ball up the court and has only one foot in the frontcourt then goes back to the backcourt. Again, this section goes off and it's getting personal at this point as they feel I'm cheating them :rolleyes:

So, at the next dead ball, I go (calmly) and was going to tell the fans that they need to keep their language in check if they want to stick around. Before I get there the principal butts in and said that he was "taking care of it". He also again added that I need to "take control of the game" and told me that I was "struggling right now". Completely unnecessary, IMO.

What all would you guys have done in this situation? Should I file a report? Game administration is supposed to be on our side and it's completely unprofessional for them to escalate the situation.

Call your assignor, tell him what happened and ask what you should do.

You're right that the comments from GM were completely unnecessary.

Unfortunately, this school doesn't have an assignor. Games are just scheduled through the AD.

Well, in that case you have two choices - report it to the state and never work there again, or don't report it and probably don't work there again...:D

I'm afraid it probably won't change much either way, but I always believe you're better off reporting than not - the state can decide if they want to do something with it. Perhaps there's someone there you can send an email or "informal" report to explaining the situation and saying you aren't sure a formal report is necessary but wanted some advice?

Do not <b>ever</b> tell the fans anything. Get game administration to deal with yappy fans. Before the game, identify who game administration actually is, whether it be AD, principal or home head coach. You tell game administration what <b>you</b> want done. In this particular case, if the principal was game administration. I would have taken the principal aside and explained the facts of life to him. Those "facts of life" being that you won't take abuse from him either and his job is to calm the fans down, not crap on you. If he isn't game administration, then get whoever is game administration to tell the principal what you expect his actions to be.

Always file a report to your assignor in these cases. That's in case other officials working there run into the same problems.

This is my personal opinion. I would never schedule back there again. If the game administrator doesn't support the officials and in this case it seems he did try to escalate the situation. I wouldn't simply come back. Maybe talk to the AD about what happened. If he apologizes, then consider working their again. Until then, they lost your services.

Definitely tell your assigning officer!

I have nothing against even speaking to that person privately to prevent them from being ejected.

I absolutely agree. After thinking about it, the one mistake I did make was not going to the principal to take care of the fans first. However, I did tell him that he's supposed to be helping us and that I will not take him talking to me like he did. His response continued to be "then get control of the game". All over a couple of (legitimate) PC fouls.:rolleyes:

I do have a JV/V doubleheader there next month. I want to call the AD, but I also am unsure if that will escalate the situation.

As an aside, I had no problems at all with the coach of this team. He didn't say a word all night, and even came to our locker room after the game to tell us that we worked a good game.

You need to deal with the principal directly and firmly. Do not allow him to discuss any action on the court. If he even tries to...stop him. Then tell him what you want him to do with the fans. Be clear. Be calm. Your responsbility is on the court; his is everything else.

I had a similar problem this weekend with a "travel" league (7th Grade girls game), where the fans started cursing my partner. There is no formal game management, so I went to the home coach and told him what he had to do. He started to discuss the calls and I immediatey cut him off. I told him we were not going to discuss anything but the fan behavior. He was the "de facto" game manager and he needed to tell the fans to stop or he would be asking them to leave the gym. He did just that and there were no problems the rest of the game.

Don't waste your time at those venues. I refused to schedule any junior high games this year - mainly for the facts you presented. You're either stuck with below average official and the fans are worse than at the high school or college level. At least that is what I found. I have put in enough time at the junior high ranks to consider myself retired from those games.

The only junior high games I have worked this year happen to be when the local school is short an official and I have the night open. At least when I do those, everybody and their aunt knows who I am so there is no abuse.

Oh - I am definitely in the process of doing fewer and fewer JH games. Anytime I have a negative situation, it seems to happen at that level. There are certain schools that treat me well and I will continue to work with those schools. But, I'm going to be doing very few of these games next year.

And if the same caoch had told you that you worked a terrible game, would you have believed him?

If you're going to thump your chest when a coach does you uou did a good job, then you have to listen to him when he says you sucked.

IOW, take it all with a grain of salt. Don't put much stock into anything a coach tells you.

Eighty,

I disagree with this philosophy of calling fewer lower level games UNLESS your quantity of higher level games prevent it. The experience gained from dealing with these "negative" situations will make you a much better official in the future. And, after you have gained all that experience, then you need to share this experience with the less experienced others as they come through. It's kinda like the people here giving you good advice on how to handle this situation - at one time they didn't know how, either.

In other words, try to give a little back as you progress through your officiating career.

Mulk

That was handled exactly the way these situations should be handled imo.