"Site Directors" gone wild
 

Girls AAU Tournament 15U

As halftime is ending, coach from Team A calls my partner and I over and says official book has A1 with 3 personal fouls and A11 with 2 personal fouls, and that he has A1 with 2 and A11 with 3, and that he has checked this with the visiting team book. He asks if we could change that. After checking that both books did in fact have this and seeing as how it would be an easy mistake to make, we ask that the book be changed. The lady working the official book says that, "you can't do that based on the simple fact that they have something different and I've been doing this all day and haven't made a mistake yet." She goes on to say that we will have to call the site director. At this point, one of my partners comes over and tells her that we don't need anything from the site director, she just needs to change it. She proceeds to begin calling the site director on the phone, and my partner tells her that we are ready to play ball.

At this point, the man running the shot clock starts tell my partner that he doesn't need to be yelling at her (which I don't think he really was, but that's not important). I proceed to get the table calmed down, the book is changed, and we're ready to play ball.

Before we can get the ball thrown in, the "site director" comes in, and wants to know what's happening. We explain everything again, and explain why we did what we did. Then, the shot clock operator tells the site director that my partner had been yelling at the book keeper, at which point, the site director proceeds to fly completely off the handle. The site director begins yelling and screaming at my partner, and I get between them, trying to escort him out of the gym. He proceeds to scream at my partner, and tell him that "we can take care of this right now if you want." I eventually get him out of the gym, and we get the game started.

Mostly, I just needed to vent about this whole thing. During three games yesterday, we had three T's (one in each game) and had a fan escorted out.

Any thoughts on how this might have been handled differently?

No toss to start the 2nd half
:D

Haha, good catch. I've edited my original post to more accurately reflect my incompetence :p

Did you introduce yourselves to your table crew prior to the games?
Did you make them feel comfortable & get them to understand that they were a part of the officiating team?

Personally, I think when we get the table personel on "our side" from the jump, things go much more smooth.

We probably could have done a better job of making them feel comfortable. Since the tournament used a shot clock, we went over that with the operator and said a quick hello before the game, but that's about it.

I need more information regarding why you decided to change the official book and go with what was recorded in the visiting book. At this point it seems that you guys mishandled the situation.

Remember the rule is that you go with the official book when the two conflict, unless the referee has definite knowledge that allows him to deem otherwise. So what "definite knowledge" did the referee have here?

Did you and your partner get together and recollect something like having a block on A11 in a big crash near the basket, plus the only hand-checking foul of the half, and then he also hit that kid in the head on the shot? If you could pinpoint three fouls that were committed by the this player, and he only has two recorded, then you have something concrete to base your decision upon. However, just having the visiting book with something different, a coach complaining, and saying that 1 and 11 are easy to mix-up isn't enough.

Additionally, where was the visiting bookkeeper sitting? On the team bench, in the stands, or next to the official scorer? The rules provide that they should sit next to each other and compare records after every goal, foul, and time-out. If they were doing this, then this situation would not have arisen. The official scorer would have said, "White #1, that's his 3rd," and the visitor would have disagreed right then and stated, "No, that was #11." Then a horn would have sounded and you or your partner would have been asked for the correct number at that point.

So, you are probably better off going with the official book and telling the visiting coach that he should have had his scorer sitting at the table and comparing information during the game instead of sitting over here and waiting until halftime. If that was the case, then you can put the onus on the team for not doing what they should and avoid upsetting your official scorer.

Lastly, how do you and your partner report fouls on #11?
Do you say, "White, one, one, block," or do you report, "White, eleven, block?"
I strongly recommend the latter as the normal speaking of the number prevents confusion and errors with table personnel. It seems to me that most of them aren't super experienced and will tune out after hearing the first number, thus missing the second number. So instead of saying "four, three," try saying, "forty-three," and see how it works for you.

PS I'm going to guess that the site manager was related to the official scorer. :eek: He shouldn't have gotten involved at all.

NewNCref, you can ignore most of what Nevada posted. The part about verbalizing the actual # of the player is good advice, but the rest is just a lack of basic reading skills and a predilection to blame everything on the officials involved in a game. Most of the rest of us got the fact that there were actually THREE books in play here - the official book, team A's book, and the visitor's book. We also understand why you went with two books against one book - especially since the visitor's coach agreed that the official book was wrong. In a regular season HS game, the official book and team A's book would be the same thing and this wouldn't come up. Sounds like you handled it the best you could given the situation...why the "site director" went bonkers is beyond reason. Must have just been one of those days.

Yep, I overlooked the involvement of a scorebook from Team B even though it is clearly mentioned in the first sentence of the OP. I seem to have incorrectly processed those words as a comparison with the book at the table.

That puts more weight behind what NewNCref did. If BOTH coaches want the fouls changed, then I can't see why the game officials or the official scorer would stand in the way of that. That's not to say that the coaches can agree to do anything that they please, for example, I wouldn't allow the coaches to agree that player with five fouls can continue to participate, but this situaiton is certainly within reason.

It sounds like the official scorer has too high of an opinion of herself and got her feelings hurt. Perhaps she felt that she was being personally criticized during the situation. I guess that it all comes down to what was said and how it was presented.

Like I care what some "site director" has to say anyway. Of course, my general bad attitude towards AAU and rec ball in general is why I work a minimal amount of it.

You can always....
 

replace the score keeper.

At an AAU sanctioned event? Good luck.

That's fine if they want their schedule messed up, because the game isn't continuing till we get a new score keeper.

Around here there is a better chance that the referee would be replaced.

If this ever happened to me, I wouldn't say Boo!!!

Would I still get paid? :)



There is a high school AD in a league where I work who takes it upon himself to just change the rules to fit all of the games in before the scheduled varsity tip off. Typically they have a FG game and FB game scheduled 45 (!!!) minutes apart. Then a JVB game an hour after the FB game and then the Varsity an hour after the JVB. He will attempt to change the amount of TO's a team has, go to running time despite the score, change the amount of time in the quarter, limit the use of TO's. And boy is there hell if you question him on it. Needless to say, I don't work there any more.