Ref Threatens Other Ref
 

Awhile ago I had three 5th-6th allstar games on Saturday from about 9:00am to 4:00 pm. A senior reff did not make it in on the plane for the upcoming boys JV and Varsity games that were scheduled for that night, so I was called to officiate those two games as well. We worked a three man crew for both high school games. The youth and high school games were held in different gyms. The team benches and scorer's table are on the right side of the big gym as you enter and on the left side of the little gym. Let me say for the record I didn't plan on doing 5 games in one day, it just kind of happened. The JV game starts at 6:00, and things go fine until the last two minutes of the fourth quarter and I guess I'm starting to get a little spacey. I administer the ball for a free throw and since I'd been standing on the west side of the lane in the old gym during free throws, I did the same thing in the new gym which is totally wrong due to where the scorer's table is located (I stood on the same side as the center official and watched the centers' rebounders!) Well the game ends and nobody says anything until, we get just inside the official's room. My partner, (state tourament reff, 20+ years experience) says, "hey what was the deal with standing on the wrong side of the key during that last free throw?") I crack up, realizing I stood on the wrong side since the big gym is arranged opposite of the little gym and explain about the 3 previous youth games. He understands and laughs about it. Well we start the varsity game and I'm administering the ball for free throws and I stand on the wrong side AGAIN for the first free throw, partner slowly walks over and quietly whispers to me, "Ace, if I catch you on this side again, I'm going to kick your ***!" I haven't made that mistake since! Still laugh about it, nothing like the old school way of teaching!

I hate it when the table and team benches are located opposite side instead of table side :rolleyes:

How do the players check in ? Do they hike around the floor, or does the scorer just wave from across the floor ?

Which Table ???
 

Many years ago, our local board teamed up with the Doc Hurley Scholarship Classic, a mid-season tournament, whose goal is to raise scholarship money for local area high school students. We provide the officials at no cost to the Classic. Every year, a few games are scheduled at the Hartford Civic Center, now the Hartford XL Center, our "big time" Connecticut sports arena, former home to the Hartford Whalers, now the Carolina Hurricanes, former home to a few Boston Celtics "home away from home" games, and present home to many University of Connecticut mens and womens games. In other words, it's a big deal for a high school official to be assigned a game at the Center.

http://www.docscholar.org/

One year, one of our best, veteran officials was assigned a Civic Center game. Many of his colleagues on our board were in attendance at the game. The first time he calls a foul he reports it to the press table, on the opposite side of the floor from the scorer's table. This happened about twenty years ago, he has been retired from active officiating for many years, and we still remind him of his blunder as often as we can.

Working a game in such a facility, when we're used to working in smaller gyms, can be a little intimidating. Several years ago, the Civic Center hosted a game involving high school All Americans, some who would be attending UCONN. My daughter's AAU team was asked to play an intrasquad scrimmage during halftime to entertain the crowd. I was asked to officiate the game, and recruited one of my colleagues to help me. Even though many of the sold out crowd were using the restrooms or getting refreshments, the noise was incredibly loud, which didn't surprise me. What did surprise me was the lighting, very bright, which I found to be more intimidating than the crowd.

I hope your partners simply rotated. It's a mistake that everybody makes when you're first learning the 3-person system. Hopefully, your partners covered for you and didn't make you cut across the court in transition.

Yep, exactly what happened, they did it so smoothly I didn't even notice. I did however notice about 3 games ago when I was lead and then I had "another lead" with me!

Had a partner miss a rotation this year in three man. I was new trail and just about ran him over in transition at about the 28 foot line in the new front court. We were both signaling a three-point shot as I'm saying his name.

Oh, sure he did !
Did he really miss it, or did you cross over late just to stick 'im ? :)

I've never seen that so I don't know.

The poster said "I administer the ball for a free throw and since I'd been standing on the west side of the lane in the old gym during free throws, I did the same thing in the new gym which is totally wrong due to where the scorer's table is located"

I was trying to poke fun at the fact he remembers to stand on the west side of the gym instead of just looking to see what side the table was on.

I wonder if he has problems if the court runs east-west instead of north-south:confused:

The funny part is it was a dead ball rotation. He was C, we had OOB on his side, so I moved over as L to administer. For whatever reason, his mind never left the C to move to T. So on the next transition he was thinking C the whole way.

North By Northwest ...
 

I believe that there are suggested guidelines for installing a baseball field, in terms of compass directions, sunlight, and shadows. That's why lefthanders are called southpaws. I didn't know that there were similar guidelines for a basketball court. I guess it's tough shooting free throws with the sun in your eyes, or filling the lane on the fast break when you're moving from sunlight into shadows.

I had two very minor problems this year with getting adjusted to new court setups. On one court, after twenty-six years of the home team sitting to the right of the table, they switched to the left side of the table. On another court, they switched the table from one side of the court to the other. Both changes took me a few minutes to get used to.

Now that HS ball is over, I'm busy with AAU and church league stuff. For whatever perverse reason a lot of these gyms have the table at the end. Now THAT takes some getting used to. And there seems to be an endless variety of situations. Benches on one side, table at end. Benches on both sides, table at end. Subs take the long hike to the table. Subs report at the center line.

It's a pain trying to remember where the table is to report, where to look for subs, where to look for timeout requests from the bench, which side we've decided is "table side" during free throws. And there's no chance that it's all going to become automatic that night. And don't even get me started about reporting from 80 feet away and hoping the kid on the book was paying attention.

Classic! :D