First Time for Everything
 

OK, had to share . . .

Was helping out a friend of mine who is an assignor in our area last night. He needed me to do 2 JH Girls games (7th A, 8th A). 7th A goes off without a hitch. 30 pt. blowout. 8th Grade game seems to be going OK. I am not particularly happy with my partner, but he is working hard and giving his best, so fine. Middle of 2nd quarter, Team A player catches a pass above her head and is holding it with both hands, still above her head. Team B player comes over and punches (closed fist) the ball out of her hands a split second after she catches it. TWEET. I blow my whistle. Violation . . . OOB to Team A. Never had this call before. VG coach who is there to watch the game asks me about the call, and I let him know violation. At half I look it up . . . Rule 9.4 (NFHS) . . . something like "cannot strike the ball with a closed fist."

Second one . . . I am L, partner is T. Team B player is going down sideline. Team a player runs in front of her. Team B player falls and loses ball OOB as a result of contact from Team A player. TWEET! I have a straight block, looking right through the play. Partner runs up, TWEET! OFFENSE . . . and signals the opposite direction. He NEVER even looks at me or acknowledges my whistle. Had he done so, I would have held my call to make sure we were on the same page. He never even turned around, and had his back to me the entire time. Yes . . . the dreaded BLARGE!!! CRAP! What now . . . so, I run over to him and ask what he has. He says offense. "Are you sure?!" I ask. "Yep!" OK. I report my foul, we call a double foul and go to point of interruption. Couldn't believe it. Leave up to a JH Girls game to get me into those situations . . . Oh, and team B won the 8th grade game too.

My guess: Partner never even heard your whistle, so didn't realize at first what was going on. Then was working on "selling the call" and "acting confident" and just blew the teamwork thing.

Next guess: He'll learn.

These double foul situations are nothing but the result of partners not communicating with each other. How a partner could not hear or see his partner is beyond me!!! Calling these type of fouls will sure erupt the place.

Actually, if both partners hit the whistle at the same time, for the same length of time, it's quite easy to not hear your partner's whistle. It's happened to me a few times.

And as for the place erupting...who cares? ;)

Well, I had a first yesterday, also.

I was working a G-JV game (as a favor to the assignor who needed an official for the game, and I was off). Team A (home team) begins the game with six players. They are terrible.

A1 fouls out early in the third quarter, and the rest of the 3Q goes without hitch. Team A has 5 players remaining, no problem. In addition, Team A is losing by 20 or so at this time.

I notice A2 go to the locker room between the third and fourth quarters. When Team A takes the court to begin the 4Q, they only have 4 players on the floor. I ask Coach A where the fifth the player is at. He replies, defensively, "She is playing varsity, she is done for this game." Fine, let's play.

With 3:50 left to play, A3 commits her fifth foul. As I am going to report the foul, I see Coach A walking to Coach B. As I report the foul, Coach A says the game is over, he "doesn't want to finish." Alright, fine with me. Game is over.

Not fine. I know the OhioHSAA quarter rule, BUT, too bad, she is an eligible player in the JV book. She has to play in 4th quarter of the JV game. Too bad about the VAR game. PM with the two teams involved. Inquiring minds want to know, :D . Your secret will be safe with me.

MTD, Sr.

Mark,

I raised the same point to my partner. He was the R. I told him that A2 was still an eligible player in the JV because she was not disqualified for any reason and, by the scorebook, remained eligible. He did not wish to issue a technical foul in the situation, because, he did not "want to add more salt to the wound."

I got your PM, but even your partner was not correct. The only way to handle the situation is to inform Team A's Head Coach that as long has he has five eligible players he must play all five eligible players. If he still refuses to comply then the R must forfeit the game to Team B. The game cannot continue with less than five players when there are five eligilble players available for Team A.

Have a good one.

MTD, Sr.

Interesting that that is the directive there. I've had coaches send a player to the locker room before the 4th quarter for that reason. They've simply said the player is no longer able to play.

I have no problem with that decision, and I'm not questioning the coach on why that player can no longer participate.

The OhioHSAA has a five quarter per day limitation. But that is not the point being made. For the sake of argument, the two schools involved were playing a FR/JV/VAR tripleheader, then the girl could play in all three games as long as she does not play in more than five quarters.

The game being discussed was just a JV/VAR doubleheader, meaning that she most definitely was an eligible player for the JV game and NFHS rules are quite specific: A team can only play short handed if they do not have any eligible subsitutes because of disqualification or injury. The player involved was not injured or disqualified, therefore Team A had five eligible players and were required to field all five players. The fact that she or the VAR Head Coach wanted her to have quarters to play in the VAR game is not germaine, in fact had she played in the fourth quarter she still would have had one quarter to use in the VAR game. The JV Head Coach does not have the luxury of just saying she is no longer able to play because that is false statement.

MTD, Sr.

I completely understand the scenario - it's exactly the same (5 quarters) in Kansas where I used to be. And there it is not uncommon for coaches to do exactly as was described. As long as those players are no longer in the gym in uniform, we weren't to ask why they weren't there.

If they were on the bench in uniform, then they had to play.

Interesting discussion, Mark. If the JV Coach told me that A2 was, simply, no longer able to play, then we might not have had this problem.

Like I said, I knew A2 was still an eligible player, and SHOULD be playing, but did not think of it as you explained. I was working with a 1st year official, who really had no background to go on in this situation.

I understand. But the solution is when this situation arose, the player should have never been allowed to leave.

MTD, Sr.

Sure, you got the call right..
 

Ahh... but what signal did you break out on this one??

sorry for the delayed response . . . TWEET. Violation. Signal direction.

OK, ANOTHER vent. What I have never had happen before has now happenede TWICE in the past 2 weeks. To me in just emphasizes the MASSIVE importance of always having a good pre-game with your crew. Anyway . . .

Last night I show up at the game site. I walk in the locker room and meet my crew. One guy I called with last week. Enjoyed it very much. The girl I have never seen before. So . . . I introduce myself and we all exchange pleasantries. I indicate that she is the R for this game as that what is listed on our game assignments. I asked when she wants to begin our pregame. She gives me the :eek: look, and says "whenever, I really don't think it's that big a deal." <WHAT!?!?!?!> "OK," I say, "well, can we do one for me, because it helps me get comfortable with my crew." She says, "we can talk later." <good>

We come in at the start of the 4th quarter (the game before ours), and sit down to talk. She says THREE sentences [LITERALLY]. 1) "Make good calls." 2) "Get good position." 3) "Let's hustle." I have to DRAAAAAAAAAAG anything else out of her. After this joyous time, we head out on the court.

The game goes fairly well, but she informs us early on that she doesn't like 3-person mechanics and isn't very good at it. I see what she means about 15 seconds into the game . . . ;) I am OK with that though, because we all have to work hard to get good at anything. I offer my assistance as best I can and she works hard and makes some great adjustments. Later in the game she is really moving well . . . and I told her as much.

We get down to about 3-4 minutes left in the game, and everything seems to be winding down in a 25 point blowout. Then it happens . . .

Team B has the ball. SHOT . . . attempt for a rebound and FOUL! TWEET! Double whistle between me and the lead (I am trail.). I look at her and say "33." She shakes her head yes. I turn, report the foul, and begin walking to the other end of the court. Everyone stops and looks around like "WHAT!?!?" I look at the lead, and she starts to walk toward me. I ask her again, "you had 33 with the push right?" She now says, "no, I had white 15." DOH!! I ask what she saw. She tells me she saw 15 white push 12 green. I let her know that 33 green pushed 15 white (from behind) into green 12. She is emphatic, that isn't what she saw. OK. Double Foul, POI. No possession as it was on the shot, so we go to APA. Team A coach is quite upset. (I can understand why, but explain what we had and what we were doing.) We move on.

56 seconds left in the game. Team B is coming up the floor. Pt. Guard is dribbling up the floor at a fast pace. She gets to mid-court line and passes off down the floor. In the process she completely obliterates a defender standing immediately in front of her. Hits the defender SQUARE in the middle of her chest with her shoulder. I am T, she is C. We have another double whistle. I look at her to see what she is going to call. She doesn't do anything. SO, I START to drop my hand and signal team-control foul. DOH!! She decides to signal BLOCK. "Luckily" I hadn't thrown my punch for the TC foul, BUT I had taken a step toward the Team A goal. Team A coach is ticked! Tells me I let her overrule me twice! Why would I do that? I tell coach, "Coach, we had the same call, and she had a much cleaner look at the play. It is her call." I ask my partner what she had after the game, and she says the girl "started" to fall back and that is ALWAYS a block! I shook my head, said OK, and got out of there.

I would very much like to hear some thoughts on this . . . thanks.