Varsity Officials Pregame - What Do You Say?

[Freddy]

Here's a link to the NFHS pre-game that's on our association's web site:
http://www.fruitbeltofficials.org/bb_3.pdf
Might be dated.
If you're gonna run through each and every item listed, you'd better meet in the lockerroom at least two and a half hours before game time.

[Terrapins Fan]

Personally, I like a good pre-game. That rarely happens for many reasons.

Good eye contact is the most important thing in my opinion. It saves a bunch of other problems.

Knowing your partners helps, having worked with them helps.

I have 1 partner that I work with about once a year. He is a slacker. He does poorly on the test and he comes in late. ( I asked him to be at the game 30 minutes before tip off ) BUT because I know this, the last game we had together, we got very good evaluations. Why? Because I knew his short comings and I help cover them. He calls out of his area, I let it go. He misses calls, I help cover for him. We move on. He even refused to shake the coaches hand before the game....what are you going to do? He was asked about it. Reflects on him , not me.

In the past I might have gotten upset about working with someone who can make you look bad, but if you know what they are going to do before they do it, you can work with them and no one will notice a problem.

Sometimes a coach will complain about one of his calls ( or mine ) and I cover saying, "Sorry coach, I didn't make that call, you'll have to ask him what he saw on the play, I was watching X play" ( post play, the guards, whatever elsewhere is )


The one complaint that we had was we got to the floor late. We covered that too. he arrived to the game 17 minutes before the game was to start. We are supposed to be on the floor at the 15 minute mark. We got there with 12 minutes remaining.

The evaluator asked why, II explained that we left the locker room with 16 minute on our clock, it was different than the game clock. Maybe a lie, but it saved me from lossing points on the eval.

Know your partner.