Officiating Other Sports??
 

Hey all,

Just curious if anyone here officiates other sports besides basketball?

In late August, I was still unemployed and making some plans in case a new job didn't materialize. Among the things I decided to do was to officiate a youth volleyball (3rd to 8th graders) league which started three weeks ago.

The obvious reasons were to earn some extra $$$ and give me something else to do besides my usual activities.

I did have a less obvious reason. I wanted to step out of my "comfort zone" in basketball and experience something new. Though I'm somewhat familiar with volleyball (watched it a lot), officiating is always a different story. Starting off with the youth volleyball league was low key way to start since the league heavily modifies the standard high school rules.

In a way, doing the volleyball gig was preparation for my upcoming high school basketball season. Because I'm new to volleyball, I mentally prepare a little more (review rules and other things). I also analyze myself after each time I officiate to see how I did (that's also part of why I started my blog).

I wanted to remind myself that all these things are essential to my basketball officiating as well. As someone who's officiated basketball for years, you sometimes feel like you can get by on "cruise control". I hope to shake myself out of that habit.

We'll see how it goes. :)

I got into fastpitch softball this spring. Season here lasts from February May then May to november for park and travel ball. Fits in pretty well with bball.

I got into officiating 29 years ago after a stress fracture in my leg (so severe doctor said if I was a horse he would have to shoot me) ended my NCAA track career at BGSU.

Started with slow pitch softball in summer and from there went directly to football, basketball, baseball, and fast pitch softball. Thinking about taking up track in spring and them volleyball next summer.

As I've stated previously, I also officiate croquet. :) Oh yeah, my wife and I raised three kids. That took a lot of refereeing.

I avoided any other sport for 25 plus years.

I will tell you now that football is a great benefit to basketball and vice versus. I think that you call that a symbiotic relationship. The only bad about football is precipitation of any kind and cold.

Volleyball is definitely a lot different than basketball. You're basically standing around looking at the action. The judgment calls in volleyball involved the player + ball and not player+player usually.

It's different but I'm having fun so far. I don't know if I'll ever go to high school volleyball but the youth league is relaxed enough to just keep me busy for a while. :)

Soccer
 

has a lot of similarities to basketball. Lots of physical contact and judgment of whether players were able to play through it. Relatively simple rules wise, but lots of advantage/disadvantage situations and need for awareness with what is going on with the players.

Volleyball is a challenge for someone from outside the sport. Looks easy, but it is not. In my 3rd year I am just starting to get comfortable, relax and officiate. Handling calls remain inconsistent.

Softball, slowpitch and now some fastpitch. Similar to basketball in that positioning and mechanics are important and rules understanding is something one can improve upon to a great degree.

I officiate football and baseball. I think being a multi-sport official makes me a better official in all my sports. I deal with more game management issues than I would just working one sport. And each sport teaches you how to deal with different situations and expectations that you can apply to each sport differently.

Peace

Besides basketball, I've been doing baseball and football.

One of my fellows officials does every sport. He spends his Monday's going from meeting to meeting for each sport. I don't know how he does it, but he enjoys it.

I am brand new to officiating basketball this year but basketball will be my fourth sport I will have officiated. I've worked both slowpitch and fastpitch softball, baseball and football. I have even considered taking up lacrosse or soccer but I'm not sure. Though I like my sports, I think I will be cutting a sport or two in the near future. :D

Years ago, I officiated rugby.
An excellent game, by the way.

Even croquet? :eek:

BTW- my 10 year old grandson, Nick, says he wants to play lacrosse. He's just likes the idea that you can hit the other guy with a stick and it's OK. ;)

Back in college, and right after graduation for a while, I officiated fencing bouts. That was a hoot. My old coach ended up coordinating fencing at the 96 Olympics here in Atlanta and got me a ringside seat for the team foil event. I couldn't call the action correctly by that point, though (too many years gone by and action much faster then anything I had done previously). That was fun but I prefer basketball.

The tin foil event? Was it sponsored by Reynolds Aluminum? :confused:

Seriously though, I would be curious what type of officiating is done at fencing bouts. Is it done like boxing, where "judges" determine there is a point scored for each proper blow landed? Isn't a lot of that done electronically now?

I can't say how it's done now as I'm far removed from the sport, but back then you were basically judging who had the "right of way". The way it was explained to me was that there are four possible outcomes in a fencing bout:

• I'm alive and laughing over your bleeding corpse
• I'm alive but you're alive too
• You're dead but I'm dead too
• I'm dead and you're laughing over my bleeding corpse

To maximize the first two and minimize the second two outcomes they came up with the concept of "right of way". That means that once I begin my attack (can be extending the blade to the opponent, beating the opponent's blade aside to get it out of the way, etc - think of it as the habitual shooting motion in that once it starts you know what's coming next) the opponent has to defend themself first by either retreating, parrying, or otherwise letting the attack end. Once that attack "action" has ended the defender then can begin his own action (riposte) or wait to receive a second attack.

Judges interpret the movements of the fencers and determine in the case of a double touch (two lights coming on the machine you mention) who, if anyone, had the "right of way" and if there were single, compound, or multiple actions taking place.

A typical explanation may be something like "There was an attack from my left, a parry/riposte from my right, followed by a continuation of the initial attack from my left". In this example the point would be awarded to the right since they took the right of way from the initial attacker with a parry, then attacked themselves (riposte) without the initial attacker defending themselves.

You could also get into things like "stop thrusts" which are an attempt to jab an attacker (who has the right of way) before they get a chance to land their attack in time.

The machines help but you still need someone to interpret the action. Saber fencing was a hoot before they wussyfied it with electronics. You used to have head judge and two judges behind each fencer (total of 5). You'd wack someone and, if you had a really nice flexible blade, would achieve a nice loud "Thwack" that caused welts like you've been tortured (just think, before the advent of masks folks used to do this with no headgear - dueling scars were thought to be very macho). The head judge would call a halt when they think a blow was landed, describe the action, then poll the judges. There was some acting involved if you really got nailed but didn't show any reaction, trying to make the judges think the attack didn't really hit. If the point wasn't awarded you could then yell out in pain (you could also yell out if the point was awarded but you got more cool points if you could bluff them).

Fun stuff but it did a number on my knees (the actual fencing, not judging).