Need Some Help

budjones05 · #1 (**permalink**) Tue Jan 22, 2008, 01:35am

I am helping out our local YMCA in basketball and I'm in charge of officials and rules. I'm having a hard time getting this one official to flat out blow his whistle. The only thing he calls is jump balls and oobs. I invited him to some of my high school games so he can "get an idea on what should be called, etc etc." Still, I can't get him to blow his whistle. Is there any way I can teach him without firing this guy? PS, he also wants to do middle school ball next year

grunewar · #2 (**permalink**) Tue Jan 22, 2008, 06:19am

How old is he/she? Just young? Do they have potential? Are they worth working with and saving? Shy? Intimidated? There are many reasons for this when you first start out, especially as a youth. Hopefully they're out there for the right reasons and are willing to learn and have potential.

If an adult, sounds to me like a case of tough love. i.e. You're here to call a game and you need to learn to do this better and put some air in your whistle. I'm going to help teach you as best I can and am willing to invest some time. Watch other games (as you have suggested). But, if you can't learn or are unwilling to learn, this may not be for you. We owe this to the players.....

Good luck, hope it works out!

RCBSports · #3 (**permalink**) Tue Jan 22, 2008, 06:31am

Quote:

Originally Posted by budjones05

I am helping out our local YMCA in basketball and I'm in charge of officials and rules. I'm having a hard time getting this one official to flat out blow his whistle. The only thing he calls is jump balls and oobs. I invited him to some of my high school games so he can "get an idea on what should be called, etc etc." Still, I can't get him to blow his whistle. Is there any way I can teach him without firing this guy? PS, he also wants to do middle school ball next year

I know how you are feeling. I am ref at our YMCA as well and there is this one ref who does not blow his whistle. And if he does, he is normally wrong. So the YMCA Bball Director invited him to watch our crew during the 4-5th Grade game. Then afterwords I asked if had any questions or comments. Then told him to be himself and don't worry about the parents. Just make the call you think is right. I dunno though, he started calling a little more, but not quite there YET. I believe he has two weeks left until his next e-val so I will go and help him ref and maybe he will catch on and start calling stuff.

Hope it works out for you. I would put him with someone else maybe that will calm him down and he will make some calls.

Hope it works.

-Lucas

ref2coach · #4 (**permalink**) Tue Jan 22, 2008, 11:25am

My assignor asked me to work a game with a new referee for his first game. 2 man, Freshman girls to be follow by Freshman boys. First 4 min. not a single whistle. We come together at time out, ask him to blow his whistle 4 times before in the next 4 min. He does JB and OOB. Between quarters I tell him to keep up on the JBs and OOB but he has to call at least 2 fouls by half. Each TO and Intermission we talk I give him pointers and encouragement. By the time the boys game starts I am no longer having to give him specific assignments as to "how many" time he needs to blow his whistle. It seemed that he needed some specific short term goals regarding the use of his whistle to get him "jump started".

budjones05 · #5 (**permalink**) Tue Jan 22, 2008, 07:56pm

I'll try that! Thank you!

Coltdoggs · #6 (**permalink**) Tue Jan 22, 2008, 08:57pm

Recently I shadowed a first game ever kid (24 years old) on some elementary aged kids game. When I say shadowed, I mean 3 refs on the court, working 2 person...I followed him everywhere and talked to him about what I was looking at, where to stand, when to close down, where to move etc. Since this is YMCA, perhaps they (the Y and the coaches) would understand....it's a rec league for them to learn how to play, why can't it be the same for the new official?

Like your guy, he didn't blow the whistle much. If I could do it over, I'd do it again with my own whistle in tow and blow the fouls he missed so he could see...in otherwords, he should have shadowed me instead.

Somebody else posted to have the new ref blow the whistle on any contact they see and they'll pick up what is adv/dis-adv real quickly.

I like what ref2coach said also about some goals...

Hope one of those helps you out...

BoomerSooner · #7 (**permalink**) Wed Jan 23, 2008, 04:35am

When I worked IM games in college, they would have two days of training and thne the third day was a scrimmage between a bunch of the more experienced refs and one of the frat house teams. They would intruct us to foul and make it obvious during the first rotation of all the trainees and then the second time they came through slack up a little bit. The first time through gave them the experience of seeing a foul and reacting appropriately. The second time through was intended to get them to see the more subtle stuff like a push on the lower body on an airbourn shooter. We did the same with violations like FT violations, halfcourt, traveling, etc. The supervisors would stand next to the trainees and help point stuff out and stop play to point out specific cases/examples. This seemed to work well.

The were some nice bruises that I can remember from the fouls though.

chartrusepengui · #8 (**permalink**) Wed Jan 23, 2008, 08:43am

Daughter started officiating last season. Went through a lot of the things already mentioned. Last weekend I worked a few games with her in a MS tourny and was very happy with the confidence and professionalism she has over last year. (still lots of room to improve) My partner also noted this. Last night I got a call from her. She worked a MS game with a newbie. She was laughing about it telling me she finally understood what she looked like last year and even tried to help the newbie out by challenging him to "make calls" by blowing x amount of whistles for violations/fouls etc in each quarter.