End of period procedure

[Bruce Taylor]

Had this situation Tuesday night in a close girls varsity contest. I was working with a veteran official of 10 years, there was 7.8 seconds left in the contest, home team with the ball trailing by two points taking the ball out at the mid court stripe. We conferenced during a timeout about the possibility of a timer error. He recommended that after bringing the ball in that I begin a visible signal count in case the clock did not start. Sure enough ball was inbounded,clock did not start and the trailing team shot the ball which was a air ball which went out of bounds. Crowd and coaches were going ballistic. I informed the referee that I had a visible count of 5 seconds. Conferenced with coaches and informed them that we were going to set the clock at 3 seconds (could not set it a 2.8). Both coaches accepted the decision no questions asked. I will definitely use this procedure again to cover my behind.

[mick]

quote:

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Originally posted by Bruce Taylor on 02-20-2000 11:50 PM
Had this situation Tuesday night in a close girls varsity contest. I was working with a veteran official of 10 years, there was 7.8 seconds left in the contest, home team with the ball trailing by two points taking the ball out at the mid court stripe. We conferenced during a timeout about the possibility of a timer error. He recommended that after bringing the ball in that I begin a visible signal count in case the clock did not start. Sure enough ball was inbounded,clock did not start and the trailing team shot the ball which was a air ball which went out of bounds. Crowd and coaches were going ballistic. I informed the referee that I had a visible count of 5 seconds. Conferenced with coaches and informed them that we were going to set the clock at 3 seconds (could not set it a 2.8). Both coaches accepted the decision no questions asked. I will definitely use this procedure again to cover my behind.

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Way to go, Bruce!
mick

[Todd VandenAkker]

Nice job of communicating with your partner in the last moments of the game, Bruce. Even if you don't use a visible count, counting to yourself is an excellent idea. Another thing I almost always do in this situation is to remind the timer to look for the inbounding official to chop time in, then remind my partner to be sure to chop it in clearly if HE gets a throw-in before time expires. Now both refs are thinking about the time, and the TIMER is well aware of starting it correctly.

[Bruce Taylor]

I guess I didn't mention that the clock is what malfunctioned not the time keeper. I understand that time keeper was doing everything possible to try and start the clock.