bad news about injured player
 

He broke his wrist. The player from last night, who was on my watch, broke his wrist on a play that should have been prevented.

This became a wake up call for me. Basketball might not be for me, not right now anyways. It is my 6th season and I should have prevented that from happening. I don't know guys, but I might be hanging up my basketball whistle after this season. Never thought I say that but it took a bad situation like this to happen for me to say that, because I absolutely love officiating basketball.

Could you guys try to convince me otherwise? My heart wants to continue, but my mind is saying to give it up. Not trying to be dramatic, but I want to know what you guys think.

Could it have been prevented? Maybe, maybe not. The fact is, players get hurt all the time, sometimes on missed no-calls. The key is, can you learn from this?

Yeah, take charge even if I'm not the R and I see something that should be penalized correctly.

At halftime I told my partner, who was the R in the rulebook, that we need to say something to that player who kept flopping, I'm ready to T him up. My partner says "oh c'mon, when have you ever seen an official call that? No one!". I'm with this partner again for CYO games tomorrow, and I will be on a short lease with him.

I can no longer be the nice guy anymore. My friend was right, I got no balls. I need to toughen up like I am in soccer, or I have to hang up the whistle.

Here's the thing, a quick warning to this player stops it 99% of the time, that's why you never see it called. If you warn him, and he does it again, he has no argument and your T becomes easier to call.

You know what, I never thought of that. Damn it, you guys really do know it all haha.

That is a good point, which is probably why my partner said that it's never called. When I ref with him tomorrow, I'm gonna say just what you said. It's never called because a warning usually cleans it up. And if it doesn't, one or two blocking (no contact) calls will probably clean it up.

My son broke his ankle a couple weeks ago -- in practice!!! Landed awkwardly on a fast break lay-up. All injuries in sports cannot be prevented. That said, we can all learn from mistakes we make every game -- we make mistakes EVERY game (in basketball and in soccer).

One other thought, and this is just an observation that may be completely wrong -- so take it for what it is: someone's opinioin. I think that you tend to get emotional about offiiciating. Officiating, like coaching, requires a level head. The more heated a game gets, the calmer you, as an official, need to be. We tend to make poorer decisions when we get emotional.

injuries happen but we shouldn't exaggerate our involvement with them. I've seen them from a fan yelling at a player to do something like drive the lane and then he does, or a knee injury with one second to go in a blowout game. You see lots of refs start who start calling less fouls there including NBA and college refs.
have fun and take it seriously. if players get hurt then they get hurt. you might pass on a call and then someone gets hurt. move on. I've had players hurt maybe a minute after I called foul that I probably could have passed on and if I didn't call the foul maybe it wouldn't have happened. So lots of what ifs when but I try to be fairly consistent and if I call a game not favoring one team then I did my part. I've seen good refs let games get physical with no injuries and refs who call it tight have injuries. It is what it is and I enjoy it.

Look, everyone on here has booted a call. I don't think that's the issue here. FWIW, I'm not sure you are emotionally ready to referee a basketball game. This assessment is based on both this thread and the other one.

This thread IMHO is a request for some ego stroking. Sorry, if your ego needs stroking, you are in the wrong avocation. The problem partners I have had in the past all had out of control ego's.

You could hook up with a certain scoreboard operator and have a good pre-game. :D

Don't make a hasty decision based on one or two incidents and the emotion of the moment.

If you still enjoy the game and add value - stick it out. All sports need good officials.

I had a B12 player break his wrist in a game I officiated last yr. It was an awkward foul that occurred in a heap along a sideline. I had the foul.....but so what. I knew it was bad when it happened.

Next week the boy was out practicing with his team and on the bench watching and cheering them on (obviously he couldn't play because of the cast). Great kid, super parents. Turns out he broke the same wrist a few yrs back during football. It happens. Let it go.

Be an official if you want to be an official. If you're heart is truly not in it, don't.

How can you call a personal foul for blocking when no foul was actually committed because there was no contact? :confused:

Here's a suggestion:
1) learn the rules
2) make the correct call by the rules.

+1

That's what I was thinking but few have told me they would call it that way before T'ing up the flopper. So I'm incorrect there...

I'm taking it for what it is, but you are wrong on my emotional state of mind during a game. I do keep a level head during officiating. It's after the game that I start getting emotional about certain things. Like one game I had a few years ago. I T'd up a coach for running his mouth all game. No problem, kept my cool, went to the table to report it. After the game he initiated a stare-down competition with me on my way to the locker room. I stood my ground, and eventually he walked away. Then after the game I went to a cafe with a friend and just started analyzing the situation and got all emotional about it, thinking whether if I should have T'd him up for the stare-down thing.

To be honest, I am an emotional guy. Sometimes VERY emotional. But I don't let it get in the way of work. The emotions stays in the locker room when I walk to the gym to ref.

MORE BAD NEWS:

I just checked my schedule for the season and saw that I got this same JH/FM team two more times this season, once at home. I'm already hearing the AD and coaches are badmouthing me, so it should be interesting to see what happens.

and who cares if they are

Even if you call a foul that does not mean someone still would not be hurt on the play. One of the biggest myths in sports is if the official calls something you will prevent someone from being hurt. Someone always gets hurt in sports even when you call something on a play. You should not take this to heart. You should not take this to heart.

Peace

Warn and wack. I hate the flopping thing. It was big several years ago and I had no problem giving a T for this. The majority of the time its in the lane and under the basket. Not a basketball play and unsafe.

These two things make me think this may not be true. After the game is over there's no reason to engage in a "stare-down competition" with anyone, especially a coach. Swallow any pride that may be telling you otherwise and get to the locker room. Be the bigger man. Staring back is engaging in the same bad conduct.

If you can't get past these situations without "winning," then maybe you aren't emotionally ready for basketball officiating.

There's no way a coach could get into a post-game stare down with me. He'll be looking at the back of my head as I get off the court. I wouldn't even know if he tried.

Just by engaging with him here, you lost.

+1

I Have A Pair Of Bite Me Socks ...
 

We were wondering why you had, "Bite Me", shaved into the back of your head. Nice haircut for an official.

I've been saying this for years. I defy anyone to show me how a call or non-call would cause or prevent an injury. The myth in basketball is that if you don't call more fouls, the contact becomes harder or is increased. That's bull. The roughest games I've had were the ones where a bunch of fouls were called. But even then, I'd argue that one thing has nothing to do with the other. The game is going to be well played, or ugly, and that's determined by the two teams playing.

If the argument is that teams don't like the calls and get out of control, how am I supposed to respond if I believe the calls or non-calls made are correct? Make calls that I think aren't correct?

I had a coach in football tell me in pregame that he was deathly afraid of injuries to his kids. I said, "fine; I guarantee you my guys won't hurt them. Other than that, I'm not sure what I can do about it. Most injuries happen on legal plays. For the ones that happen on illegal plays, the flag isn't going to heal the injury, so the only real question becomes whether we make the correct call or not. I can assure you our goal tonight will be to get the calls correct, but I can't make any assurances about injuries on anyone' part -- your players, your opponents, or even you and I."

He seemed a bit annoyed, but I didn't really leave him with anything to argue about. I was very annoyed that he thinks officials have something to do with preventing injuries. In fact its one of my pet peeves (if you can't already tell)!

While I agree with everyone that in general calls (or no-calls) don't cause injuries, there are a few things we CAN do to potentially help prevent them. They are all non-basketball type plays. We can call a violation for swinging elbows the first time it happens and not wait for blood and teeth to attempt to stop the action. We can penalize unsporting conduct when it happens, which may prevent it from escalating into physical conduct. We can penalize intentional fouls when they are committed in late-game fouling and not allow the conduct to escalate.

Again, never are officials to blame for injuries. However, we can penalize conduct to reduce the chances of non-basketball plays escalating into actions that cause injuries.