Paitent whistle
 

I'm trying to work on a patient whistle and was wondering if you guy had any tips that helped you become better at seeing the whole play first before your whistle goes off? Any help would be great. Sometimes i do allright but then you get that one call you wish you could have waited on. Do I need to be talking to myself or what?

It is clear you have a grasp of what is going on. I would just say make a note of the plays you think, you should have held a slight second more in your officiating journal and review them before each game. This may help. I know it done me wonders.

That's an excellent question and there's really no easy answer. Pretty much we're trained to use our instinct to blow that whistle at the "first sign" of a foul or violation. Sometimes we get in the habit of anticipating a foul when the play is developing into a certain circumstance and we blow the whistle but the foul actually doesn't occur. I think the best thing for you to do is just practice waiting, practice waiting and then practice waiting some more. Just don't wait too long or you'll get the reputation of having a "slow whistle" (which, I guess, is better than having the reputation of having a "quick whistle"). Also remember that if you wait "too long", the play will continue when it shouldn't and other things may occur. The ability to get the whole picture will come with time and is based on the advantage/disadvantage principle.

Remember, all contact is not a foul and sometimes a play looks kind of "goofy" but, by rule, it's not a violation.

Just think, if it didn't require any intelligence to officiate, Billy Packer would be doing it. :D

I'd Be A Very Rich Man ...
 

Good point. I wish I had a dollar every time, over the past twenty-eight years, that our board interpreter told us to, "Anticipate the play, not the foul".

This is the hardest thing for me to remember, especially as I get more games called. The tendancy is to think "I know what's going to happen" and call it that way regardless of what actually happens. Situational awareness is a good thing, but not when you start projecting what is going to happen (for the simple reason none of us know what's going to happen). What I've tried to do is let the play come to me rather than going out there and getting (creating?) it.

I also do some public speaking and the one piece of advice I try to remember is that you can't talk slow enough (i.e., no matter how slow you think you're speaking you're really speaking faster). Like Mark mentioned you don't want to be Eyore out there, but you can probably wait a beat before you blow the whistle and be ok.

The interesting thing is that there is a moment in time between when the potential "whistlable" event occurs and when the crowd/coach reacts. Understand and figure that timeline out and you'll have some idea of the amount of time available to you to make the call.

Something that I work on and is helping me is seeing the whole play develop. You get a sense of "does this play need a whistle." Sometimes it does and sometimes it does not. You can always blow the whistle a little bit late. Remember a wise man once said, a late whistle is a great whistle. From what I hear, they have attempted to eliminate the majority of the "and ones" from the college basketball and the trickle down effect is happening for high school games. That means that we need to have more of a patient whistle.

One thing that I did this summer with some of my games was not use my lanyard and keep the whistle in my hand till I thought that need to plow it. Sometimes by the time I got the whistle in my mouth the play had developed and a whistle would have be wrong. Other times I was glad that I waited because it was now a shooting foul rather than a non shooting foul. It did not take long to get the whistle in my mouth but that little bit of time helped to process the play a lot.

Hope it helps.

When I started to referee I was told."You can always put air into a whistle,but you cannot take it out". It helps alot when your standing on the baseline waiting for any action.

Good article in this months Referee Mag about this.

Ask and ye shall receive. These guys just blessed you with thousands of dollars worth of info! Just implement what they've shared & you are on your way.

This may sound like like goofy BUT try breathing in before blowing your whistle. That spilt second that you take the breath on may just be enough time for you to make a decision to call/no-call a given play. I picked that up at a camp a couple of years ago and it seems to work for me...

Train yourself to NEVER blow the whistle at the "first sign" of foul. Instead, train yourself to see the play...always without the whistle, then consider what happened, then blow the whistle (if needed). As long as you develop a consistent pattern and it is not "too late", it should work well for you. There may be times where you want to conciously make it quicker, but that is easier than the opposite (where you can't take back a whistle blown too quickly).

Thanks for all the replies. Practice, practice ,practice... Thoes plays where I have a patient whistle just feel so much better than if I hurry. I will continue to work on it.:D

Yep, good thread for me to read, and re-read.

Evaluators hammered me on several occasions last night on my "quick whistle." They DEFINITELY gave me something to work on - and I will!