Question and Advice

[CMHCoachNRef]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

Three-person boys varsity game. Ball was thrown into the post on my side of the court while I was in the C position. My Lead was coming across, so I was officiating the open look I had and was ready to slide up to Trail and the next advantageous moment.

A44 Catches the ball with his back to the basket and the defender (B15). A44 turns and as he turns he lowers his shoulder, however at the same time (or very close to it) B15 is swiping down hard and catches A44's arm. Both go to the ground in what appears to be a hard (not intentional nor flagrant) defensive foul.

Both lead and I blow our whistles I was intending to go with an offensive foul, but only got my arm part way up when I recognized my partners whistle as well as closed on the two players than have now crashed to the floor. My partner on the other hand has a defensive foul on B15 and is also on top of things assuring that nothing extra is occurring with bodies on the floor.

In hindsight I wish I would have handled things differently, but because the "hard" foul by the defender I felt it would be very difficult to "sale" my offensive foul even if it actually occurred first, and hence didn't approach my partner to inform him that I had something different (my mistake).

In this situation where my arm moved upward but stopped short of a preliminary signal we aren't obligated to call a double foul....or are we?

To add to the already complex situation, the B's coach heard my whistle blow and saw my arm move and astutely began to point it out yelling that I was going to call a travel prior to the foul. The coach boisterously begged and pleaded for the "travel", making me feel even worse for not having communicated better with my partner.

So in short, I'm asking for the sagacious advice of those who frequent this forum on how to have better handled that situation...in particularly with the coach noticing my arm being raised and then quickly dropped.

Thanks

1. No, you are not obligated to call a double foul.
2. When you hit your whistle, once heard your partner's whistle (and/or saw his hand), you had "options."
A. You can defer the call to him,
B. You can get together and discuss what you each have,
C. He can come defer to the call to you,
D. See who gets to the table first (OK, kidding with that one).

Option A (or Option C) is the best option IF there is a 99.99% chance you both had the same call. In most situations, this will be the case. Option B is a much better option if there is doubt as to whether a violation happened before a foul OR if there is a possibility that your partner had a different foul call (perhaps two different defensive players involved OR a potential conflict between a player control foul and a defensive foul).

Arguably, the primary official in this case was somewhat gray -- since the lead had just arrived and you seemed to be in transition from center to trail. In these situations, I think that the best solution from a game management perspective is to go with the call that is the easier sell. In this case, by your own description, your partner's call was likely the best solution.

In this case, since YOU KNEW you likely had a different call (based on YOUR DESCRIPTION of the play) and you knew that the identification of the primary official may have been in doubt, you should have gone to him with what you had AND recommended that he take the call.

In lieu of that, at the very least, you should have gone to the coach and SOLD the fact that you had the SAME CALL your partner had.

If he had been a truly observant coach, he would have noticed your fist coming up (rather than an open hand) and would not have been arguing for a travel, but rather the call you actually had. In that case, you still would have been better off SELLING your partner's call (based on your description of the play).