my camp experience

[A Pennsylvania Coach]

Just returned from camps at Penn State last week. Spent Sunday to Thursday working individual camp, which was mostly coaching but included a little officiating. My first comment is that one-man is impossible. I was hustling my tuckus off but there was still way too much I couldn't see. And if I couldn't see it, I didn't call it, so there were a few trainwrecks with no whistle. One-man is even harder when you have the clock (a watch) and the arrow as well!

Thursday to Saturday was team camp. My assistant coaches brought the team up on Thursday. We had five games, all officiated by PIAA officials (and a few new guys). I only had one game with any complaints. Both guys were calling the game tightly, so at halftime I asked the one to loosen up a bit. Well, he did, but the other guy didn't. So for about four straight possessions, there were rebounding foul whistles, all at one end, since they weren't switching except on shooting fouls. How can you officiate fairly without switching? No two guys are going to call a game the same way.

We also did something called special situations, where in an hour we'd play out three situations (each of them twice, one starting on offense, one starting on defense). The situations would be something like 45 seconds left, down by 1, inbound under opponent's basket, for example. My team and I loved these, and I think the officials did too. We did pretty well on them. In one of the last ones we did, I had a player take an intentional delay of game by stepping on the line during an inbound with 2 seconds left so we could see the opponent's play. I gave the official a heads-up to watch for my player stepping on the line.

All-in-all a good experience. So far I've survived the entire summer without a negative word to an official, living up to my vow! I know it won't be so easy in December!