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.

Ugh in KS
 

Your partner must be from KS. I worked a fill in game with ugh. UGH let me know ugh's philosophy as well. I stood behind every call that UGH made, no matter how bad I thought that it was or how upset the coach was, until late 4th quarter, home team down 3 with the ball. Girl is on a dribble drive to the basket.

"Tweet", I am lead opposite. Ugh is trail ball side and table side, aka coach is two steps from UGH. I am expecting anything but not what came out. We had a travel. Coach goes into orbit, "She was dribbling the ball how can we have a travel." Not bad for the coach to know the rule. I went and talked to UGH. I asked her what was the violation. UGH tells me it is a travel. I asked UGH politely if girl was dribbling the ball. UGH said yes! I told UGH we did not have a travel and it would be home team ball on the baseline. UGH was mad. Both coaches were happy that we got the call right. Visiting team coach was laughing at the call.

UGH did not talk to me rest of game. Thank goodness there was only 1:30 left.

I feel better now that I have vented.

UGH must get lots of frequent travel miles!

Maybe I was misinterpreting it. I was always interpreting it as lets let them play unless something crazy happens, and get out of here as quickly as we can. I guess I shouldn't interpret it that way?

That's right. I tried to put it in nicer terms than Tony given that it's the holiday season, but you are really too new to have a grasp of this or any other basketball officiating philosophy yet. Give it time and stuff like this will come to you.
For now just go out and call what you see.

You did a good thing by coming on here and asking. You will get some helpful answers. You also helped me by giving me a better perspective on the mindset of new official. Hopefully, I can now be a better partner and communicate more effectively when I work with a newbie.

No it shouldn't.

Here's my take...

Relax and see the entire play....make no decision the instant the "foul" occurs but make the decision just after it occurs, your choices will improve. By waiting a second or two to blow the whistle, you'll find that some of those "fouls" didn't really matter and things just might work out better for the "fouled" player (and you can simply not call it) OR you'll know that it needs to be called. At the same time, most of the players/coaches will also know the same thing by the time you blow the whistle and will not be surprised.

If you're blowing the whistle as the foul is still occurring, you'll often be anticipating the call because you haven't seen enough of the play to know whether it should be a foul or not....take your time and make decisions, not reactions.

Perhaps there are officials that interpret "call the obvious" as you have stated. But that's not what most us mean when we state it. As you call more games, you will see that there are calls made based on "circumstantial evidence", or what the official "thinks" happened. Those are not obvious calls, and those are the ones that get officials in trouble.

There seems to be a natural progression in officials as they gain more experience. Early, officials may be afraid to blow the whistle. Then they learn to blow the whistle all the time, even for things they think they see, or things that simply look funny. Many of these calls are made because the official is not in the proper spot to see the play. After a while, as they get better, they learn to distinguish what actually is a foul or violation from things that look bad. Those are the obvious calls. Then the really good officials learn about positioning, so they can be in position to see more of the obvious calls.

Here's my take on the progression.

1. Afraid to blow the whistle.
2. Call everything, all contact is a foul.
3. Discover advantage/disadvantage and let too much go.
4. Settle into an ever improving balance.

We aren't that far apart.

Dang, I was hoping to get into a knock-down, drag-out fight.

Maybe I could just yell about you from the other room... :D

What are you, a coward?

Not if you're not actually in the room to tell if it's really me yelling.

Oh, wait, JRut would write me up and report me to the state.

Never mind.

This is the sequence that ALL of us went through when we first got started... and it does take more than 2 years to go through this.

No I do not. This probably suggests you do not understand what that means. After all you are a second year official and I would assume you have not learned what is "obvious" yet.

Peace

One guy in our area hasn't gotten past "Stand at mid-court as trail and call at least one 3 second violation from there a game."

And he is not moving up any time soon.

I will make sure that a "Special Report" is posted as soon as Monday morning. :D

Peace

Gee, thanks. :D

Nope. This is not a direct answer, but these things might help you.
Let me give this a shot. I'll start with some and others chime in

• Don't call it if you don't see it.... not if you think you saw it or if it could have happened... only if you see it.
• Don't get too concerned with meaningless contact... like east-west ticky-tack stuff instead of play impeding the advancing the ball.
• 3 seconds could be a great call or a "clock killer" depending upon the circumstances.
• Just because it looks funny doesn't mean its a travel.
• Watch the defense.
• Over the back does not = on the back or displacement.
• Just because the coach is frustrated doesn't mean they deserve a T.
• Never go into a game looking for a specific foul or violation that you have in mind before the game. Call what you see and not what you want to see.
• Contact can be hard and still be legal.
• 10 players running in a confined area = contact. No way around it.

Add to it friends!

He could have just told you to STFU. Maybe that's the best approach for that angry coach, too.

Ugh, I worked with a really bad official a few weeks ago and it was almost as if he hadn't even seen a basketball game before. Right, from the opening tip when he tossed it starting below the players' waists. When I was playing high school we had a ref who flat out told us he was changing the way he called the game to favor the team that was down after my team was winning easily. This happened a few times until my coach complained and the ref didn't do anymore of our games. lesson- keep the calls consistent and fair.

Most of the responses so far have dealt with the "don't make stuff up" side of the phrase. I think it *also* means something like, "trust you partner to get calls in his / her area, but don't be afraid to get an obvious call that they miss." And, defining that line is the toughest thing for me to do.