Establishing confidence, confidence and respect from coaches and players

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by btaylor64

I understand what you're saying. I believe a lot of officials know what obvious contact is. Could we agree a player who is contacted in the head by a player who is swinging to block a shot, is an obvious foul? Or how about a player shooting a floater and the def. Player is swinging to block the shot and makes contact hard on his tricep nowhere near the ball? I, along with what I would think to be 98-99% of officals, would like to believe that we would deem these an "obvious" foul. Plays like these are the easy ones that could call themselves. The other "tweeners" are the plays that most are referring to.

Again the rules say that contact can be severe and still be incidental. Even your examples have exceptions and caveats to them in order to determine fouls. And if you are going to use the term obvious, you still must understand that this is not going to be the same for everyone in every possible situation.

Originally Posted by btaylor64

Also in your list, I would like to disagree with the one that states something about a player playing through the illegal contact. If the contact is illegal it must be called a foul. If it is marginal or inconclusive then a no call can be substantiated. At the high levels there are players that are big enough to play through illegal contact but that doesn't mean I have the right to ignore it. I'm doing a disservice and penalizing that player who made a committment to hit the weight room so he could play through that contact to earn himself more and 1s. This job is truly an art and views vary but I would like to think we agree on 99.9% of plays that would be obvious.

A foul is not a foul until the contact puts someone at an advantage and puts the person being contacted at a disadvantage. A slight bump or a hard bump might still not be illegal if you deem no advantage was gained. And just because there is contact does not mean the defender or offensive player actually did anything illegal. Contact is bound to happen.

Peace