Consistency? What's that?

[zm1283]

Originally Posted by Hugh Refner

It's been my experience that coaches define "consistency" as you being consistent in calling the game in their favor. What do you expect when you have one set of people - the coaches - totally subjective and another set of people - the officials - totally objective?

Remember - you can't "call it both ways". You can only call it one way - the correct way.

Yep. Exactly why having coaches rate officials is absolutely ridiculous. Kiss enough butt, let coaches walk all over you, ignore certain rules, and refuse to take care of business and you can get a good rating from everyone.

[ILMalti]

Sorry to be so late joining this interesting thread.

I believe there could be consistency in a number of areas.
I do not agree with a score card by coaches unless they are willing to pass the officials exam and take the appropiate classes or are officials themselves.

The interpretation of the rule book should be consistant; the calls which require "a judgment (yes I am using the word ... becasue all seem to agree that it is the right one; still debating internally) may be allowed to be varied from game to game, official to official.

Look at these thread for example: Why should there be such "inconsistant understanding" of say a held ball.

There are 2 articles in 4.25, one dealing with opponents on the ground and the other dealing with an airborbne shooter.

The judgmennt call (see disclaimer above )is whether "preventing the release" for an airborne OR wheter the ball could not be brought under control without undue roughmess. This IMHO, is where inconsistancy can be justified

Calling a held ball when a player on the ground is prevented from releasing a ball is inconsistant and bad.

So I submit that there could and should be consistency in the intepretations of the rules, and justifiable inconsistencies in the judgment calls mentioned above. This, as was mentioned in a previous post, is where experience comes to play an important part or so I think

[BillyMac]

I was just perusing the new Arbiter website and came across this:

Consistency, Consistency, Consistency
Written by Tim Sloan, Bettendorf, Iowa
Released on MyReferee
Copyright© Referee Enterprises, Inc.

In basketball, consistency is a term that few can define but almost everyone can recognize and appreciate in a crew. Provided that a referee doesn't make the game dangerous or take the competitiveness out of it, the good coaches and teams will adjust to what the zebras give them. In fact, you can often pick those coaches' voices out from the mob behind you. Instead of asking, "How could you call that a foul?" they're reminding you, "If you're going to call it at that end. ..."

Consistency for basketball officials really exists on four levels and it's important for their upward mobility to succeed on all four of them.

Self-consistency. Most have heard the debate about whether a foul in the first quarter should necessarily be a foul in the fourth quarter or vice versa. Generically, a foul is a foul. But if you divide them up as safety, advantage-disadvantage and game control fouls, there are many successful officials who preach flexibility on the latter. They feel that you can change the mood of a game for the worse by being too rigid or too loose at the wrong times. Maybe so, but you still have to maintain a level of predictability during a game. If you're like most, trying to deliberately change your standard for calling a foul during a game is like trying to write with your other hand. It's clumsy, frustrating and not very pretty. Changing your standard depends too much on your current mindset. So, it's reasonable to believe that self-consistency over the course of a game breaks down as a result of other factors. Some of the principal ones are fatigue, attitude toward the game and comfort.

Fatigue is an easy one. An official whose heart isn't getting enough blood to the legs isn't getting enough to the brain either. Attention to keys and concentration dwindle as the game wears on and so do the responses. There is no real substitute for being in condition to handle the game. Attitude toward the game changes when the official forgets what I consider to be the golden rule: "You're paid to be here so it doesn't matter what you think of the experience." Call the game and don't cheat them with "good enough." Comfort doesn't refer to the fit of your compression shorts. It means how you're reacting to your surroundings: Do you feel safe? Are people or surroundings distracting you? There are people who can sleep soundly in an orchestra pit and there are referees who can cheerfully blank out the most hostile of environments and keep on doing their jobs. They don't let the fear of a lynching change how they call a game. Learn to deal with stress or learn to manage the issues that threaten you. The great officials can do that.

The bottom line is that the participants need to be able to trust you if you want to keep getting called back. And having the physical and emotional tools to call it consistently is paramount.

Consistency within the crew. Mechanically, I think it's far easier for referees who have never met to work together in a three-person crew than two. That's because they can focus on a more confined area and have to rely less intuitively on their partners to watch their backs for them. There's less of a need for a "system." That goes for crews who have worked together for years, too. Unfortunately, the flip side of that "independence" is the same partners might have more trouble staying "in sync" with one another during a game. If they're paying less attention to what their comrades are doing, they're probably not calling exactly what the others are calling either. You want everyone calling it the same way.

Crewmembers have to establish a reputation for working to the same standard in the same situations throughout the game. Unless you can find identical triplets somewhere, it inevitably means that even the best officials have to exercise some give-and-take in their judgments to leverage their success as a crew.

Consistency from crew to crew. One of the most underestimated factors in a crew's potential for success this week is what the coaches had to put up with last week. If the officials come in and put on a completely different show than the last gang did, one crew's going to get it in the neck. Somebody in authority has to be communicating with crews and telling them how their products differ - good or bad. It's even more critical that those crews listen and adjust. A great way to get booted out of a conference is to shrug off how you differ from other crews and say, "Take it or leave it." They'll leave it.

Perhaps the right word isn't consistency but capability. In manufacturing, a consistent process is one that always gives the same result but that result isn't necessarily the one you want. A capable process is one that consistently gives the desired results. Assigners want officials who reward their confidence in them by turning in capable performances night after night.

Fortunately, capability is a quality you can develop if you're willing to work at it. And it certainly pays off when you do.

[imagomer]

Wow. Deep discussion for summer. I agree with the general point of BillyMac and the additions of some others that players should be able adjust to consistent officiating within a single game. I think "game to game" and "over the season" are much, much more difficult to achieve for officials, though difficulty should not discourage striving for a goal. If I were to attempt to condense my expectations for officiating, I would state them as "competent predictability." (I admit: not a bad expectation for coaches, either) I would expect myself and my players to be able to readily adjust to a competent official making predictable judgements. JMTC.