Gum chewer....or not?
 

What's the "rule of thumb".....Is it ok for game officials to chew gum, or not?

Yes.

(iow, it depends on your area and your assigner.)

Also the possibility of choking need to be considerd .
We need to look as professional as possible.
Would you let a player chew gum on the playing area?
and if you wouldn't, what would your answer be if you were asked why is it ok for you too? (a "T" would not cut it here)

Whilst on the court we have to look and act as professional as posible... I am still working at it. I only realize how odd I look on the court after I saw myself on a video....

If you look sharp and professional, your whistles will be respected more (obviously the rules need to be known and applied)

Off my soap box

1. I would never stop a player from chewing gum. What rule you gonna use for that one?
2. It's not relevant anyway. How many officials do you see wear their wedding rings?

Personally, I've tried chewing gum (a partner offered it), and can't do it. Nothing to do with choking, though. I know some guys who need it to pevent their mouth from drying out.

trying the new "centrist" snaqwells

Tell them to stop blowing their whistle so much :D

Or stop talking so much.... :D

Had a partner this summer essentially coach the kids; way more than the "hands off" stuff I do; then he followed it up with "great defense" when a defender tipped the ball OOB after he was telling her to stop leaning.

Down The Middle Lies The Virtue ...
 

Aristotle believed that every ethical virtue is an intermediate condition between excess and deficiency.

Aristotle was an idiot. I'll let you decide whether that statement reflects excess, deficiency, or virtuous mediocrity.

If your assigner has no feeling one way or the other about chewing gum, then I guess you need to weigh the cost and benefit. The cost is the perception. If you can do it without looking like a gum chewing moron (I don't seem to be able to), then the cost is probably pretty low. What is the benefit? Some guys do it to keep their mouth from getting dry. I never noticed that it helped that much for me. I did it mostly as a way to feel more relaxed during my first season. It did work for that. So much so, in fact, that I pretty much looked like a gum chewing moron.

Well, that's what you get for blowing bubbles during timeouts.

And Please, Mark Padgett, No Depends Jokes ...
 

Aristotle would have presented four choices for the statement: virtuous, continent, incontinent, or vicious.

Hey, I am not incontinent. Regular perhaps, but not incontinent.

Why would you say that? He was a genius who dominated western intellectual history for 1500 years.

hear hear

I agree with this on a couple pieces of babble he spewed about deaf people (keep in mind I'm deaf in one ear myself, and wear a hearing aid in the other):

“Deaf people could not be educated; without hearing, people could not learn.”

“A person born deaf becomes senseless and incapable of reason.”

Otherwise, Aristotle spewed some great mind-provoking thoughts.