Tough situation my partner put us in
 

I'm in a camp scenario working with someone with only a couple years experience. The camp is using rec league middle school games, which is a whole other issue, but I digress. Situation:

White ahead by 15 and clearly will win by a lot more. I've already T'd a Blue team assistant coach. I am lead tableside, first half. Partner is trail opposite table. White is in possession, player is dribbling in my primary and loses control of the ball. Ball is heading toward sideline out of bounds. Dribbler catches up and flings the ball into her backcourt to avoid the ball going out of bounds. The only player back there is a blue player who is poised to retrieve the ball after it bounces and will have an easy layup. However...

As soon as the ball bounces in the backcourt, my partner blows his whistle and calls an over and back violation on White. There's not a White team player within 10 feet of the ball. When I go over and ask what he's doing, he has the deer in the headlights look. He realizes he's kicked it, but now what do we do? Do we give it to White since they were the team in control, even though they could not have touched the ball without violating? What would you do?

Wow.

By rule you have an inadvertent whistle with White in possession, so White should get the ball.

But in your situation, summer camp, girls are there to work on their games, nothing is at stake, I'm leaning towards giving Blue the ball. Guess I'd HTBT though to get a feel of how things are going.

4-36 covers it quite nicely. Since it's an accidental whistle, the ball is put in play by: "A throw-in to the team that was in control at a spot nearest to where the ball was located when the stoppage occured". So if the whistle happened before blue got possession, white gets it back. If the whistle happens after blue got the ball, then blue gets the throw-in.

At least he got the "deer-in-headlights look" rather than arguing with you that he was right.

By rule, in a camp setting, I guess we should go with an IW & give it back to White since they still had TC.

But common sense tells me to go with an IW & just give it to Blue as they are getting smashed & you can already predict the outcome of the game. Plus I'd hate to have to whack somebody else on Blue for our mistake.

Tell the newbie that camp is a good opportunity to work on game management techniques and send him/her over to the blue coach to explain.

My partner was insistent that white should get the ball back and I was trying to figure out a way, by rule, that we should give it to blue. But I couldn't. It was chaos. The blue bench was going ballistic and while he was being hammered by them (this wasn't the first inadvertent whistle he had in the game, so I didn't care that he was getting hammered), I quietly slid over to the camp directors and asked what we should do. They said give it to Blue. I didn't ask for an explanation, I just pulled my partner back from the fray and said we were giving it to Blue. That seemed to calm things down.

After the game I asked the camp director what his reasoning was to give it to blue. He said after thinking about it, by rule it should have been White ball, but based on the game situation, and the fact that I'd probably have had to toss the entire Blue coaching staff had we given it to White, giving it to blue was the right thing to do in that situation.

This is how we learn...

I'm still not sure we did the right thing or not. If it wasn't a camp, I probably would have been happy enough tossing the entire Blue coaching staff. And my partner along with them...

In this particular situation you did the right thing, though is wasn't correct.

In a REAL game you would have had to calmly explain to Blue's coach the error of your (crew) ways and that by rule White gets the ball. That's where that communication thing comes in handy. :)

I think you did the right thing. I made an error in State Tourney 2 years ago that I'm thouroughly embarrased by. I fixed it the "right way" rather than the "rule" way. On my evaluation, I was criticized for making the error but not the way I fixed it.

There are many "right" solutions to odd situations that don't have rules support.

In your case, the rules were never written with the expectation of randomly inserted inadvertant whistles. Sure, there is a rules way that can be used to cover them, but that wasn't what that rule was really intended for either.

I think the right thing was done, and honestly, in a non-camp setting at that level of ball in that situation, I would have just done it that way without thinking twice. The camp setting would have given me pause, however.

That's the thing that really messed me up the most. I was so concerned with the fact that I was being observed while all the chaos ensued, that I could not think straight and I just overloaded. It was a great learning experience, after the fact, as it was easily the most bizarre situation I've ever been involved with. If anything remotely like this ever happens again, I will at least act a lot quicker and get the game going again.

Because I was being evaluated at the time, all I was concerned about was a rule way to cover the situation. It just seemed so wrong, but I wasn't really thinking in terms of right and wrong at that moment. Which is why I just caved and asked the camp director what we should do. I felt pretty stupid, but I was already under the bus, what's a couple more wheels rolling over me gonna do? :o

You could also tell your P to be ready to tell the blue coach that camp is a good time to learn how to handle being on the short end of crappy rules. :D

Let's turn to page 7 in our books.



A player or team should not be permitted an advantage which is not intended by a rule.




Give the ball to blue.

The outcome is correct by common sense and justifiable by rule. This was not an inadvertant whistle and should not be treated as such. Your partner erroneously called a backcourt violation and should live with the call. He should award the ball to blue and play on.