Ugh!
 

After taking last year off for personal reasons, I am getting back into the swing of this reffing thing slowly. Freshman girls today -- game ended 44-11, V won. score was 26-3 at the half.

Partner was just, ugh. She wasn't a ball watcher, exactly, but she wasn't watching off ball either. And her philosophy was that the further behind a team is, the more they need every little chippie foul called so that they "wouldn't get frustrated".

She meant so they wouldn't take out their frustration in hard fouls, I know, but in my experience, the logic is just as bad that way. Girls that get too many fouls called on them (and don't have the experience to understand that situation) just give up trying not to foul and hack away. Which is of course what happened. Only she said the hacking was because we'd "let up on calling it her way". We called 14 fouls on them in the first half. I don't see how that's "letting up!"

She also decided that since the assistant coach got control of the head coach when said hc was yelling about a bad call, she'd let the AC stand, walk around and communicate with her during the game. :rolleyes: Although she didn't tell me that until AFTER I'd told the head coach that the AC needed to sit and be quiet.

She couldn't run worth beans, she was even worse than me, and when she was new lead but the play got ahead of her, she didn't keep hustling down to the endline, she just stopped where ever she was and reffed from there. My gosh. And then called things anywhere on the floor.

I was afraid that I'd have a rough time coming back, and do some of that kind of stuff, and I have made some sort of brain-fart calls in the last couple of weeks. But I guess this thing is more like riding a bike than I realized. I was a good ref before my bad personal year, and I'm a good ref now. I kinda like that feeling!

OK, let me get this right, the team scored 3 points at half AND you had called 14 fouls against them? Did she have money on the game? I am joking. Who was the senior official? What did you talk about at half time? I would have told her everything you posted.

Yea, I tried to talk to her at the quarter and at half-time. That was when she was explaining her philosophy to me. That's why the title of this thread is Ugh!

Get in
Get done
Get out
and pray the next time you work together she has taken to heart your halftime comments.
Welcome back to officiating. That is sincere and not sarcastic based on what you ran into.

Only thing worse than a weak official is a weak official with a philosophy.

That sounds exactly like the partner I had last weekend. Maybe she splits her time between Oregon and San Diego?

I have only one partner here, and it is ugh every weekend. He's a janitor for our school and is often late (like shows up when teams are being announced), comes to my reffing clinics that I hold via video conference and asks and answers smart questions and then gets on the floor and has forgot everything that was covered. I overlook his mechanics but situational awareness and seeing the whole play is very important and is lacking often.

IOW I know what you mean.

An Offer You Can('t) Refuse
 

Shishmaref Ref Buddy,
I am here to help you in your plight. I hereby offer my services as your officiating partner at any time. With adequate time given for travel considerations, I would be more than willing to work with you at any game you need me for.
All I'd need is for the travel expenses to be covered. Perhaps the Bering Strait School District has some funds tucked away somewhere so that wouldn't be a problem. Or, if they'd rather just put me up somewhere in White Mountain or Unalakleet for the winter, that would be okay, too.
I am, after all, just about the only person on this discussion board who knows who Herbie Nayokpuk is. That's gotta count for something. :)
Call me when you need me.

LOL thats funny.

On a related note, does anyone find the "call the obvious" philosophy ridiculous? I'm in my 2nd year, and it really throws me off when my partner, almost always senior to me, tells me that we should just "call the obvious." I've had my worst couple games as an official when I've been told that. Should I just ignore that comment, or how do I handle it so it doesn't throw me off?

Any comments you try to give to a person like that will always fall on deaf ears. I worked with a whistle freak one night in a boys JV Game. When I told him to slow down his whistle and make sure he really had someting, he got faster. VERY early into the 3rd quarter we're in the bonus and I had blown my whistle once when I inbounded the ball to start the second half. We had a stupid 1hr 40 minute JV game. He was never invited back to that school.

No, I think that it is a great starting point.
You may have a point that this advice isn't too helpful for a new official. That person just doesn't know yet what is an obvious foul or violation that should be called.

I'll have to give that some consideration when working with a 1st or 2nd year guy.

Not true. Having grown up in Alaska, and still following the Iditarod each year, I know who the Shishmaref Cannonball was!:p

Sarah Palin?

Note to Juulie - this wasn't ABC's wife, was it? :D Ya' know, I never heard you complain like that when you were working our kids rec league. I guess we're doing something right. :)

Call the obvious equals:

Don't make **** up.

Don't look for stupid ****.

Call what you see, not what you think will happen.

You're a second year and even though you don't understand a lot of these principles being thrown at you, they are time tested and work. If you don't understand, ask questions. But don't assume it's ridiculous just because you don't understand it.