Officiating philosophy

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Tio

The visiting team and coach are more paranoid than the home team. They are usually travel weary, have had the fans jeering them since warm ups, and now have 3 officials that the coach has never seen work before. Even at the collegiate level, there is jockeying going on. North Carolina played BYU in a tournament last year in Vegas and wouldn't play with the Mountain West officials (who normally work BYU games) and so a Pac-10 crew was brought in last minute. So, I try really hard not to do anything to fuel any perception of unfairness. One thing I try to do is never spend more time with a home coach during introductions. That is a sure way to start building a negative perception.

This perception can occur in high school games also. Many years ago, a few years after Title IX kicked in, the two top high school girls teams (for several years) in Connecticut never faced each other because they played in two different leagues for regular season games, and played in two different classes for state tournament games. Team A invited Team B to its Holiday Tournament, a much anticipated game by girls basketball fans across the state. Each school had it's regular season games officiated by two different local IAABO boards, in the case of Team A, the home team, and Tournament host, my local board. The coach of the visiting team, Team B, wanted this "big" game to be officiated by his own local board's officials, that officiated all his games, in his own league, both home games, and road games. The led to a debate, not only between the two coaches, both very strong willed, but between the two local IAABO boards over territory and jurisdiction. Team B actually threatened to withdrawal from the Tournament unless it could "bring it's own officials". I'm not 100% sure how it turned out, this was over 25 years ago, but I believe that our local board refused to allow another local board to officiate in our territory, which forced the issue to be settled between the two two coaches, and the game was played, with the home school's local board's officials.

Also, rookie officials, take note of Tio's statement: "One thing I try to do is never spend more time with a home coach during introductions. That is a sure way to start building a negative perception." This is an excellent suggestion, because perception and reality often get confused, which should be avoided as much as possible.