Inadvertant Horn - Bus Tossing Rant
 

Last night - GJV ball. Partner under basket with team A throw-in. I'm T. Inbound pass is thrown and A2 completely misses her attempt to catch. Ball bounces and is rising towards A3 making an attempt to retrieve it. As she is doing this the horn sounds from table. A3 hesitates and looks at table. Ball passes her and goes OOB near division line. No one touched ball. I whistled and sent ball back to endline to partner for throw-in Team B.

Coach team A furious - wants ball back to A at POI. Then, as soon as he finishes yelling this - says B should get ball at division line. Since ball was untouched and horn does not stop play we gave the ball to B at endline for throw-in. At half - varsity officials in stands told us we got it wrong. Ball to team A at POI. Later heard that they were tossing us under the bus for the call to team A fans when 2nd half was beginning.

I just don't understand why so many officials that are so anxious to throw other officials under a bus. What gives? :mad:

From your description, you had it right. At your next association meeting or next time you see the V officials, I would respectively talk to them about the play. Have your rules numbers ready.

Edited to add: If the coach needed to rant at anyone, it should have been the time keeper or the timing mechanism.

would love to see them again and tell them. However, I've never seen them before and they don't belong to our association. I looked them up in the directory and they came from about 100 miles from the game site - which was in the city our association bases in. The directory does not indicate whether or not they belong to an association.

What they did just irks me though!

Maybe call the school's AD and try and get in touch with them that way.

No doubt. They probably thought there would be no consequences for their misbehavior.

Why not prove them wrong? They got the game from somebody -- talk to that person.

Hearsay?
 

CP, the Var officials were wrong (from your OP).
The "under the bus" comments were hearsay. Maybe their language was impolitic, maybe they were jerks -- who knows?

When they told you that you got it wrong, I would hope that you would explain that you got it right.
If you have a coach 'furious' at this call, maybe take a look at your mechanics on the play.

Might want to add a little Kabuki theatre to the action. Calling official blows whistle when ball goes OB. You both know what happens next, but you can help others along with something like:
"Partner, did you have a touch?" maybe some visual touch indication and questioning look.
"No touch... Throw in Violation... Here!"
"Good call!"

if you are in proximity and have a moment, "Coach, that is a throw in violation, we are going back to the spot."

the coach clearly knew he shouldn't get ball as he no sooner got his first words out of mouth and said B should get ball at division line. When he said that, I told him the ball was untouched and so it went back to endline.

I don't think he was so much furious at us as he was at the timer for sounding the horn improperly. I think our mechanics were pretty good. Whistle and open hand up. Look to partner - no touch signal. Said "throw-in violation" (but perhaps not loudly enough. But did tell coach the ball was untouched and he heard that ok.) Point to spot and roll ball to partner who pointed to spot and called for Team B.

I heard about the varsity officials comments from a person I know professionally and trust. When they told us at the half in dressing room that we got it wrong we disagreed and were trying to explain but they just laughed, dropped their bags and left for the stands. Glad I'm not them!!!

This reminds me of a similar experience earlier this season. G/JV, girl approached us before the game to see if it was ok to play with a plastic tip on her finger. Both my partner and I told her no and to see if she could tape it up. Well, she ran back across to tell her Varsity coach who waved us over to explain. We told him the rule, also told him of a November memo from the IHSAA about the rule from elbow down. He told us we didn't know the rule, that she had played 20 games this year with it on and nobody had said anything about it (disingenuous, no way she could have played that many by end of December). We asked the coach if he knew the rule, why did she come to ask us...:confused: Well, at half time of our game, I see the V coach sitting behind the V officials lobbying to have her girl play in the V game (very unprofessional). Lone and behold the V officials let her play with the plastic tip. They told me before their game that it was no more dangerous than a finger. I told them them the rule, the IHSAA memo, and how bad that makes me look. The long and short of it, the problem in Indiana is that coaches vote makes up 100% of post season tournament selection. These guys were protecting their vote. This still pisses me off.

Why did the horn sound? Did they start the clock or did the timer hit the horn on purpose?

Did the varsity guys say you should have considered the horn an IW?

Varsity guys never said anything to back their perspective. Just said, and I quote: "you guys screwed the pooch on that throw in call. Ball goes to A" Partner: "I don't think we did - what do you mean?" Them: "you just did, ha ha ha" out the door.

They were courtside when our game was over and we just passed them heading to dressing area.

The horn sounded because a substitute had approached the table after partner administered ball for throw-in. When they couldn't get in immediately they returned to bench as horn sounded. The timer was someone I have seen do several games to was not really new to the job. Player was not at table prior to giving ball for throw in. I saw partner look there before giving A1 the ball.

I feel good about the way we handled the situation and can't say I would do anything differently. I don't see this as an inadvertant whistle.

Sounds pretty good to me.
 

Sounds like you did everything right.

re: V officials.... speechless/stumped. Note to self. Don't ever be THAT guy(s).

Did Horn "stop" player A3 ?
 

Would it have been appropriate to blow the whistle prior to the ball going out of bounds, IF A3 stopped due to the horn and otherwise would have been able to secure the ball?

she was scrambling to get ball and was near the ball when horn sounded but I can't say for certain that she would have retrieved it.

Thanks for the clarifications. I would have done the same thing. The only time I would treat the horn like an IW is near the end of a quarter, when the players (and officials) are expecting a horn to end the quarter/half/game. Other than that, it's a good lesson for the players to play through horns and wait for whistles.

In WI with no central assigner, I'd probably just say something like "who asked your opinion, anyway?" and then puke on their shoes.

Had a somewhat similar play the other week. Player A is dribbling up the court, the horn sounds, and he throws the ball in my direction. The defense was still playing defense on the dribbler and on other offensive players. I let the ball go OOB and awarded it to Team B.

Of course the bench and the player was a little upset, but I told him the horn doesnt stop play automatically. If both teams would have stopped playing their positions I would have stopped play with the whistle, but only the dribbler seemed to process the horn and proceeded to throw the ball OOB.

Agree. That's why I generally don't offer up my opinion on things about the JV game unless specifically asked by the guys doing the game.

Or how about: "Really? You think we screwed that call? How the hell did you guys get Varsity games if you don't even know the rules on oob calls?"

They aren't from your assignor or association, so who cares what they think.

NOT a good idea.

Why?

Unfortunately, it probably wasn't apparent that they were pricks until the end of the conversation. But it's a good comeback anyway. :cool:

Tape it up?

Don't think so. The rules will not allow the girl to play with a plastic tip on her finger, no matter if it's taped, padded or blessed by the Pope. That one is covered definitively under NFHS rule 3-5-2(a) and you don't need anything from your state to rule on that one.

For starters, it's not professional. Secondly, we never know who else is listening - which leads me back to "it's not professional". It only stands to good reason that we, as officials, should ALWAYS strive to maintain the highest level of professionalism especially when it comes to governing what comes out of our mouths.

Finally, I've discovered it is never a good thing to badmouth another official - whether you know him or not.

Tape it up instead of the plastic tip.

I agree, V officials were way out of line. However, perhaps a little preventative officiating here would have prevented the problem. With a visual check to the table before administering the throw-in you might have noticed the player headed to the table and waited momentarily to wave her in. Of course, you may have done that and she just wasn't headed to the table yet.

Nah, just shower, change clothes, and then stick around for the varisty contest. While you are sitting in the stands, make sure that you loudly criticize the calls of these officials so that all the spectators can hear you. :D

Real class act those two.
Nice job handling the sitch....both on and off the court.

Read on, he watched his partner look just before he administered. Sometimes, the timer just has a brain fart and hits the horn when he shouldn't.

No one has yet answered the question: What if you whistle just after the horn sounds before the ball is clearly OOB? I mean, if it's a play where there's no definite thing happening, and the horn sounds, and all the players just quit playing, I will whistle and then give the ball as POI (after reprimanding the table gently). So in the OP, if you see that A3 is very close to the ball, and then stops trying when the horn sounds, why not blow it dead before it gets to the OOB point and just give it back POI? Of course, once you don't whistle, I see that it's a turnover.

Just curious. How is this right? From the description, the ball was in flight during an inbound pass. No team-control at this point. When the horn went off, I was thinking that it should have gone to the arrow since A did not have possession of the ball.

I'd like a rule reference for this please.

EDIT: forget what I said... I just realize the horn doesn't necessarily stop play.

Well first I feel you got the call right. The horn doesn't stop play...I always yell play on play on when that happens. It is unfortunate that that happened but yes the ball wasn't touched and there was no whistle to stop play so it would go to team b at the same inbound spot.

As far as the officials throwing you under the bus...that sucks! It happens a lot. Seems that everyone wants while pregameing or post gameing officials bash other officials. It can be easy to get caught up in. But I'm making a conscience effort to not engage in that talk. But to do it publicly is even worse. I would make sure someone knows what happened. And I do nothing annonamously( sorry for spelling).

No, you still don't understand the POI rule. If play is stopped DURING a throw-in, by a premature period ending horn due to a timing mistake or an official sounding the whistle, then play is resumed with that throw-in.

Even though there is no team control during this time, this is NOT an AP arrow situation.

Now why won't you take the advice of those who have told you to look this stuff up before you post? If you don't wish to do that, the least that you could do is read more and write less. You just keep posting incorrect rulings and we have to correct them.

Clearly you have no experience with that concept as you don't even know how to spell the word. ;)