To reach or not reach

[Rich]

Originally Posted by Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.

fiasco:

It is obvious from your posts, that you are either a very very inexperienced basketball official or a troll. I have decided that you are a very very inexperienced basketball official and not a troll. I am not going to tell you my basketball officiating background because there are many many members of this board that will tell you that like the E.F. Hutton commerials of old, when I speak, people listien (at least they humor me and act like they are listening, ).

Now listen carefully, and I do mean listen and do what I tell you. Your first responsibility is to officiate your primary coverage area (PCA), and NOT officiate your partner(s) PCA. I can assure you that with ten (10) players running around on a court that is only 50 ft by 84 ft (H.S. dimensions) in size, you will have all the more than enough to do without worrying about your partner(s) PCA.

With regard to fishing in my pond when you have enough fish in your own pond, you can bet your sweet bippy (Google Rowan and Martin's Laugh In) that the conversation that we have will be one sided and I will be doing talking and you will be doing the listen, and if you still insist in fishing in my pond I have the experience to make the rest of our game a living hell for you. And I can do it while still looking and acting professional.

So get your head and a$$ wired together (ask a Marine what that means) and get rid of the notion that you and only you have the correct call on everything that happens on the basketball court even if it happens in your partner(s) PCA.

Am I irritated with your attitude right now? Yes I am. I just wish that you could attend a basketball officials camp and I could be a staffer at that camp. Your attitude would go over with that camp staffers like a lead ballon.

I will end this lecture at this point.

MTD, Sr.

I may only have 22 years in this game, but when an experienced partner fishes in my pond, I normally respond with a "thank you." It's cause I was screened off or had other duties to attend to.

I hear the 25/75 studies passed around and I can honestly say I hope I pass on the ones that would've been incorrect calls. I do see things in my periphery but hope I have the experience and patience to pass on all those except those that need to be called.

The threatening part of this post I find disappointing, quite frankly. I do not sit and listen to halftime lectures from crusty old vets -- perhaps because I've slipped into those ranks myself without even realizing it. And sometime I am unhappy about a partner and what he does on the floor, but thankfully the game of basketball has a clock and I can spend my energies working the game and then getting out of Dodge as soon as I can afterwards. I'm certainly not wasting my energy on a "lecture" the guy wouldn't listen to in the first place.