this question was posed this weekend at a meeting.

if you were a supervisor of a conference would you rather have a referee that was a good game manager, or a good play caller?

though these talents go hand in hand with being a great referee, which official would you rather have to work a tough basketball game and why?

after people have resonded i will type the opinions of an nba referee, and a college supervisor.

Game Manager.
 

Now for those that do not understand this answer, that does not mean you cannot be good at both or in my opinion you or both are not important, but I think game management is much more important. You are going to miss plays. We all miss plays from time to time. If all you can do is call plays and you cannot prevent things from happening you might have to call things.

But that is just me.

Peace

Play caller
 

If you had to pick just one, I would go for a btter play caller (obviously a good referee is balanaced in oth - they are not mutually exclusive).

Here is my reasoning:

Say your "Play Caller" get 99% of the calls right, and has huge game management problems, while your "Game Manager" can manage the game, but only gets, say, 65% of the calls (or no calls) right.

When the play caller kicks a call (1%) there will probably be a game management issue arising. If need be his (or her) partners, referees supervisor or even players/coaches can help out with game management.

On the other hand, when the "Game Manager" kicks a call - there is nobody that can resuce the referee.

In a nutshell, game management can be helped by others - only the referee watching the play can make the call.

As has been discussed before (and as Rut pointed out), you need to be a good play caller <b> and </b> have good game management skills to handle all situations. And I would imagine that the league supervisor's answer was that he would want a "good game manager" because he probably assumes that anyone at that level has already mastered the play calling or they wouldn't be there.

However, in my <i>personal</i> experience, I can help my partner manage the game even if he is a little green and starts to sweat when the heat gets turned up. However, I can't help him when he doesn't know the rules and makes calls incorrectly that I don't witness (because I'm always watching off ball like I'm supposed to be, of course). :-)

Part of my pre-game conference is that we get together when anything weird happens. That way, we can manage the game together. For calls in his primary area, I can't be much help.

Z

I do not think that is the issue here.
 

Man, you are obsessed over this rule thing. I do not think this discussion was started to address the importance or lack of importance over rules knowledge. Officiating has many sides to it, rules knowledge is not the most important one. If it was, assignors at the college and pro level would never move you up until you pass a test. And unless you have done both HS and college level games (sometimes Men's and Women's) you will always have challenges with rules.

I watched a young official tonight mess up on a rule, not a single person said a thing. Not a fan, not a coach, no one!! He stopped counting 10 seconds in the backcourt when the count clearly should not have ended and I think I was the only one that noticed. Well his partner noticed, but we did not take him out back and beat him senseless because of it. I told him asked him about it so he could learn from the situation and we moved on.

Man, basketball is not Football or Baseball when everything you do is based solely on a rule. In Football alone there is over 200 rules differences from NF to NCAA. Do you think the officials that do both do not scratch their head sometimes and wonder if they did things correct? Of course they do, and when they realize they messed up, they move on and learn from that experience. Most of the basketball rules that most officials have are not every day rules. And usually it has more to do with their judgement then their knowledge of that particular rule. I have personally been caught off guard when those unusual things happen in a basketball game, more than I did not understand or have knowledge of the rule.

There is a reason you here the phrase, "call the obvious."

Peace

As a coach and fan, game management is more important to me. As y'all generously point out, most non-referees (including players) don't have a clue about the rules. Although spectators and participants sometime correctly boo a kicked call, most of the time we don't know what we're howling about. So, its critical that a referee manage the flow of
the game, the consistency of the calls, and the intensity of
the coaches and players, and sometimes, the fans.

When I recall the worst games I've been a part of, its not
the calls I remember, but how the games got out of hand because coaches, players and/or fans didn't control their behavior, and referees didn't nip it in the bud early, and control it throughout. Don't get me wrong - I'm not blaming the referees for bad behavior of others, but it only takes one referee puking on my shoes to shut me up.

Game Manager
 

I'd prefer a good game manager. I think that they in fact go hand in hand, good game manager's tend to have the ability to be good play callers as well. With the inflated egos of players and coaches that is part of the game today, I believe it's important to have the ability to take care of business without the whistle. While having said that, a good game manager will know when enough is enough and use the whistle.

"I did not know we all had to think alike." - JRutledge
 

He's not obsessed, he's simply stating his opinion. Isn't it you who always says we don't all have to think alike? You whine and cry, when others disagree with you, that you're entitled to your opinion. Well, guess what. Others are entitled to their opinion, too.

Don't whine about others disagreeing with you and then pop off when they express their opinion.

Tastes great! Less filling! Tastes great...

This topic has been beaten to death. Anyway, from what I
can tell, the goal of any supervisor worth his salt is to

1. have the correct number of refs show up on time
2. not get a call from irate coaches after
3. not have bad press concerning his game.

<i> Man, you are obsessed over this rule thing. </i>

Oh yeah, I'm obsessed about it Rut. My apologies if I expressed my opinion on a thread. Unlike you, I have never started a thread on this topic. I have just chimed in with my opinion. I guess we all have a right to our opinion unless it conflicts with yours. But then again, you say everyone has a right to their own opinion, we don't have to agree, and you don't care what anyone else says. Obviously, your actions speak much louder than your words.

Z

OK Master Tony
 

Tony, stay out of the conversation or read everything that was said before this point. Zeberman brought up this discussion here on another post no one even made an issue over this "rules knowledge vs. presence" discussion. We are not talking about rules knowledge at all. We are talking about game management and calling the game. Who knows the rules is not the issue.

Yeah, you are right Tony, I base my life one what a bunch of officials not in any of my gerisdiction of officiating. If I am whining, then you need to base your conversation on what I say to you. I do not think your name is zebraman. But then again this is the internet. ;)

Peace

I do not think the question has anything to do with anything other than game management and play calling. And not only that, crew addressed that he had this converation with assignors and evaluators too. We all might learn something because I have never heard you express how many games you assign for a particular conference. If all these individuals think the better officials have their hair colored blond and with a Grizzly Adams beard is what they want to see, it might help you as you begin to move up or explore other officiting options.

You are right, you have a right to give your opinion, but I have the right to give mine too. :)

Peace

What exactly is meant by "play-calling" then, JRutledge??? Doesn't one need to have rules knowledge in order to "call plays" on the court?? You have, again, brought up the discussion, and then when someone expresses an opinion different than yours, you pop-off to them - again...and one someone else points that out to you, you tell him to stay out of the conversation...so explain to us EXACTLY what you mean by "play calling" and how that has nothing to do with knowing the rules, please...

Sorry, I did not start this conversation.
 

Man, I get blamed for everything. :) Sorry crew started this issue and made a post about it. I will let him answer that question.

We spend half the time talking about philosophy, storys of things we have experienced, camp issues and shoes on this board. If basketball is a sport that has many challenges based entirely on rules, why do we hardly ever discuss play or situations where the rules are not clear to us? Go look at the baseball and football boards both here and on McGriff board. You tell me then what the nature of those discussions are.

Peace

I don't care about the baseball or football boards...I will also say that my answer to the original question - which is more important: play-calling or game management - is undeniably game management...all supervisors are looking for good game managers...they can teach us what to call and what not to call, but can't really teach us how to calm a coach or handle ugly situations...having said that, I will also add that you had better be able to make correct calls, because you aren't going to get to make a whole lot of mistakes in your first few years at an "upper level"...but play-calling and rules knowledge are the same thing...