I did a girls BB game today and then stuck around to watch the boys game. During the game an assistant coach kept standing up and yelling at the officials to call "over the back." Then he'd turn to his boys and yell "I guess these guys think they took 'over the back' out of the book!" After about the third time I decided I needed to do something.

So after the game I went up to this AC and informed him that the words "over the back" appear nowhere in the NFHS rule book. He was dubious, but thanked me anyway.

Oh well...one coach at a time. :)

No such thing.
 

I have been know to tell them "there is no such thing" during the game I am officiating. Usually takes away at comment and they shut up after that.

Peace

Excellent job because I to am sick of hearing that.I would like to add one to that,my other favorite "come on ref he's reaching in".Also not in the rule book but every coach,fan and annoucer know it well.I heard a annoucer say the other day say see he is reaching in and the ref will call that everytime even if there is no contact.Makes you want to laugh or scream.

Re: No such thing.
 

I'm with you, Rut, I say this every once in a while. Unfortunately, last week, as my partner was walking to report a foul, a kid said to me, "It's about time you called the over-the-back." I said, "Did you know that over-the-back is not a foul?" The gym went dead silent just in time for God and everyone to hear my partner report, "White, 32, over-the-back"

AAAUUUGGGHHHHH!!!!

I had this happen my first year doing varsity. One team was a noted football school playing a smaller team. The coach was screaming for "over the back" calls all night. Finally, during a free throw, the captain came up to me and asked me why I wasn't calling the "over the back". I said that there was no such call. He went right over to the coach just like a tattle tale and told him what I said. His team was so lost by this that they forgot to play. They lost by about 20. I still snicker when I think about it!

No such thing.
 

Had nearly the same situation...
My partner is a high-quality baseball umpire (many state tourney games) and now he is doing basketball. He has stated that he doesn't care to learn the rules of basketball to the degree that he knows baseball. I tactfully suggested that he should invest more energy in learning the rules rather than relying on his "presence" to officiate the game. Needless to say, he wasn't interested in my encouragement. As he shifted the conversation to' "Only 6 weeks til softball starts."

This is the same P that uses the "foul tip" signal nearly every trip down the court.

DOUBLE AAAUUUGGGHHHHH!!!!

Has anyone ever heard a coach yell "moving screen" when there is three feet between palyers?

Drives me nuts.

Blackhawk

I think some officials keep the 'over the back' myth alive as we have seen in some of the posts here.

I was watching a grammer school game the other day, and one of the officials called a foul under the basket and then went into a little act where he took his hands and held them both up and made some kind of, climbing a ladder like signal (never seen that signal in the book) and yelled, 'Over the Back!' Very animated. I couldn't believe it.

Player question.
 

A few weeks ago during pre-game warm-ups, Varsity Captain Red came to me and my partner and he asked, "Do you guys call over-the-back? Cuz we jump over some teams, never touch them, yet we get called for fouls."

I agree that one of the reasons the myth is still alive is that some officials still call it. I coach high school boys varsity. We have had three different officials this year that have called fouls and then gone to the table and reported it as "over the back" and then given the classic over the back signal. (both arms up over their head and hands reaching over)

At the beginning of this year, my assistant, who is an old time basketball guy, was yelling at an official to call an "over the back". I turn to my assistant and tell him that there is no such call, that if anything it should be a push. Two minutes later, the official reports an "over the back foul" My assistant looks at me and says "Thought you said there was no such call?"

So then tell me, what is a coach supposed to do? One game the official is calling an over the back, the next game the officials tell him there is no such rule, the next game it is getting called again?

If your referees are from an association give the interpreter a call and let him/her know. Ask if they would call it a push as it should be.

I would be especially concerned with an over-the-back “signal.” It is one thing to miss a call, or to have a different view of the rules but giving a non existent signal is inexcusable.
(Unless it was the block plus trip signal I gave on Tuesday :D )

Whenever I've call "over the back" there has to be some contact that causes an advantage/disadvantage. That's right isn't it? When I report it, it give a push signal. That's okay right?

Yeah, but don't say "over the back" when you report it. If you give the push signal, then you should call a push

Better yet, after reporting the colour and player who committed the foul, give the "push" signal, but don't say anything while you do it.

Response to the Coach
 

I've often used this reply when a coach wants an "Over the Back" call.

"Coach, over the back is fine. When he is on his back, I'll make a call"

Works everytime.

Re: Re: No such thing.
 

Hey, even God needs a good laugh every now & then! :D

I know. I sent Him to one of your games.

Yeah, I saw Him there! He was sitting in the fourth row of the bleachers screaming "Call the 3 seconds already!!!!"

http://www.candleartgifts.com/assets/images/324.jpg

Yeah, I saw Him there! He was sitting in the fourth row of the bleachers screaming "Call the 3 seconds already!!!!"
[/B][/QUOTE]Did you get the AD to get Him out of there?
Game called on account of http://www.feebleminds-gifs.com/donderwolk.gif

This will probably not be a popular post with the masses.
I get almost as tired of officials criticizing the phrase
"over the back" as I do coaches using it. Don't we all know what it is the coach is yelling for when he yells
"over the back" or "reaching in" or whatever? Would it be any more tolerable if tomorrow they all changed to:
"Hey, Mr. Ref, 22 pushed my player who had established good inside position." "C'mon, Ref, he hacked my player in the act of shooting." "Oh, dear God, Ref! I know you saw A1
when he illegally extended his arm. Surely if there is any justice in this world, that should be a player control foul."

Kinda makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck just thinking about it.

Well,Justa,I've been told before that I'm usually one "m" short of a "mass",but I'm gonna answer this one anyway.

Officials tend to use the terminology that's also used in the rulebook because it tends to reinforce the (oft mistaken) idea that we're the only ones in the building that really knows and understands what we're doing.It's like being part of a Secret Society,where we each get a decoder ring along with our rulebooks-and nobody else in the gym gets to have one.It's also the exact same reason that we try to use standardized mechanics,too.In other words,it's got a lot to do with the concept that every official should know exactly what every other official is doing by just simply observing them.The saddest part is that,if you happen to be a young official,and there's an evaluator in the crowd when you're calling the "reaches" and "over-the-backs",you might end up doing JV games at Podunk H.S. for the rest of your officiating career.It might also make the difference between you and another official,when they're trying to decide who to send to the next round of the State play-offs.You could be equal in ability,but the other guy/girl is gonna go every time.You might not like that either,but it's a fact of life. JMHO.

Mechanics..
 

Mechanics and terminology are an officials best tool of communication, so it is important that we all try to stay "on the same page".
IMHO, officials that use incorrect signals (visual & verbal) cause hardships for everyone, and these signals are some of the only things that we truely have direct control over in every game. My 2 cents.

But jar, that's not the problem. The problem is that coaches yell "Over the back!" whenever the player behind reaches of his opponent's head, makes no contact, or there's contact within the vertical plane, and gets the rebound. They don't understand the rules. I can live with a coach screaming it when there's illegal contact but the point of the "There's no such thing as over the back," is that coaches want it called anytime the player from behind rebounds, contact or not.

Hi there.

Is Deb Shephard (sp?) still reffin in Chatham-Kent?

Just wondering...

Mike

Hey JR...
 

...how did you happen to stummble across THIS site?

http://www.feebleminds-gifs.com

:p

BTW, nice gif

I think that's the point I was trying to make. What they yell is not the problem. Is it really a problem at all?
They also yell "Travel!" when neither foot moved. They yell
"Ten seconds!" when the actual count is at seven. Right words, wrong call, thanks anyway, coach. Some don't understand the rules. Some think if they yell for everything you will give them something. Many, I think, are just so overwhelmed by their intensity and desire to win the game that their perception of a play and the resulting call (or no call) is warped beyond belief. The truth is that push often does not describe the contact which results when the outside player commits a foul while trying to rebound. I am certainly not suggesting that officials change their signals or terminology to pacify any coach, I am merely saying that when you hear "Over the back" you treat it the same way you do when the coach calls time out after the other team's made basket and wants to know if he gets the ball at midcourt.

Re: Hey JR...
 

Obviously,by the name,it's my homepage!:D

Thought I'd post that before someone else(coughChuckcough)did.Actually,I just plugged "animated gifs" into Google,if I remember right.Small thing....etc.,etc.,etc.

IMHO, I still think you're missing the point, although you're certainly entitled to your opinion. The "Over the back!" nonsense is frustrating because it happens more often that any of these other plays you've cited. And, coaches can get pissed off, complaining about it constantly. That doesn't happen with the other plays you've described.

I don't remember having a coach yell traveling when a player didn't move either foot and I've never had a coach ask me to inbound the ball at the division line after a basket. As far as a 10 second count goes, I don't expect him to know where I'm at in the count. But I certainly expect him to know that you can't have a foul without contact. That's pretty simple.

The Creeping Death Foul
 

I was at an SEC game a few years ago with a good friend who now teaches at Wake Forest.

He knew I was an official and he would ask questions every once in a while about rule differences, etc. He was knowledgable enough about the game he could've been an outstanding official had he had the desire to be one.

We were watching the game and an SEC official calls an "over-the-back" foul.

He reports and gives this signal that could only be described by my friend and myself as "the creeping death foul."

The official put two hands over his head, curled forward, and took a few steps forward and lifted his arms up and over an imaginary player. The creeping death foul.

We still mention it to each other when we talk and laugh about it even though it had to have happened 5-7 years ago.

I saw it again during a D-I women's game this season. I almost blew Pepsi through my nose.

Rich

Edited to add: To respond to JAR -- I have no problem with the phrase "over the back" or "reaching in." The problem I have is that had there been contact that caused a disadvantage, I would've called it. Some coaches seem to automatically think that the inside player has a righ tto the rebound. Of course if the player behind is able to go over without contact, there's no call. But the "over-the-back" screamers don't usually see it that way.

[Edited by Rich Fronheiser on Feb 15th, 2003 at 10:07 AM]

I agree that it does happen often, because there are a lot of missed shots, there is a lot of blocking out, a lot of player without position jumping and trying to rebound anyway. This leads to coaches yelling for fouls, some pleas have merit, many certainly do not. It just so happens
that the phrase they use in this case is "over the back."
I am just saying that I fail to see the big deal in the language. If they just yelled "That's a foul!" would that make it any better?



I don't either, offhand, but I wouldn't put it past them.
That was kind of a lame example.:)




I've had this one several times, after a timeout. Jr. high
coaches that watch the NBA on tv.



Certainly not, but coaches and fans try to speed this count up all the time. I think that this is a good example that a coach will yell for a call without information to back it up. He could have been watching the clock. He could have been watching and counting the visual count, but I doubt either was the case.


I think in this case they are suggesting (whining, begging)
that there was contact. Certainly when you are directly behind the 2 players involved, it can be difficult to tell if there was contact or not, especially if much distance is involved. I don't recommend this as a practice but I sometimes will hold my hands up a foot (or 3) apart to show the coach how far the player was "off the back."

Icredible! If they're making up "over-the-back" you have to wonder what else they are coming up with isn't in the book. Frankly this kind of officiating is downright embarrassing.

Bravo. Common sense, please. The point is COMMUNICATION.

If I have a player go, ahem, over the back on someone and there is contact, and I blow my whistle and announce "Red 14, push", the player is likely to say "WHAT? I didn't push him". If the coach asks what the foul is, and I say "push", he's likely to give the same response. But if I say "you went over his back", he will get it.

Sure, when I go to report, it's "Red 14, push", but only because I like to keep my foul report short and sweet. Otherwise, the better I can communicate, the better.

Whether or not "over the back" is in the rulebook is silly. The call is what's most important. Making sure everyone knows it and understands it, runs a close second. Whether or not the exact words as I said it appear in the rulebook does not even rank.

I'm not saying we don't need to be knowledgable about the rulebook, but do we really need to split this hair?

The notion that this is some sort of "threat" to proper adminstration of the game is overstating things. I've never had an evaluator say "Gee, that was a great call on that rebounding foul, but "over the back" isn't in the rulebook. I don't think you can do Varsity anymore."

And if an evaluator decides that even though I make great calls, am a good partner, and have good game management, that I'm a crappy official because I don't blow my whistle and announce "Red 14, illegal use of the hands", well stop the bloody planet. I wanna get off.

Hmmm, think I'll go out and buy a flame-resistant suit...:D

The overall point is that "over the back" is not a foul. You can out jump an opponent from behind and a coach will cry for "over the back." So the use of language is very important, because the term is based on a rulebook myth.

But if you want to be technical, I think you should not use any verbage at the table. You should just signal the infraction and not verbalize it. But that is the way I came up and was taught.

Peace

True, very true. But in the end, the point we want to make to the coach is that if there's no contact, there's no foul. What's the point of saying "that isn't in the rulebook" when all we want to communicate is "there was no foul". To start throwing around semantics, to me, looks like we are being "officious" rather than being "officials".

I agree wholeheartedly, but my region was trained to include the verbal. Like I said, I try to keep it to one syllable, which is the next best thing, I suppose.

Agreed, absolutely, but as I said earlier isn't this a very debatable call a large percentage of the time about whether there was enough contact to be a foul? Can't we just read between the lines and know that the coach means: Hey, that guy gave my guy a PUSH in the BACK when
he went OVER him on that rebound. Try this angle.
Coaches also yell: Walk! He walked! That's a walk! etc.
I find no violation which contains the word walk. Why do we not insist that he yell: Hey, 33 illegally moved his pivot foot!


Please excuse my ignorance, but what exactly is this myth?

The myth exists
 

Many coaches and fans have heard the term 'over-the-back' so many times that they actually believe it is illegal to play the ball from behind another player. I think we've all seen completely clean blocks or steals when a player brings the ball behind their head with two hands. Then everyone yells for 'over-the-back' despite the fact that there was obviously no contact. Same thing on rebounds, when there is a taller player behind a shorter one, or just a better jumper. I cringe when that taller player is called for a clean rebound. I call it a penalty for being tall. Then you see that dejected look on their face because it's their fourth foul and they know they got hosed. Oh, and I've seen the otb mechanic too. I refer to it as the Frankenstein signal.

Why that term?
 

"Over the back." Coaches do not yell when their player has been out jumped facing each other, but for some reason when a player is behind them, they think there is a foul. Contact can only cause a foul and it can occur on any side of any player. There is nothing special about contact with a player's back.

And at least the term "walk" falls in line with "travel." You are correct it is not "rulebook" language, but at least suggesting a player walks, does not go totally against the wording of the rulebook. The terms "running with the ball" are used to describe traveling.

The bottom line is "over the back" is the term they use. We do not have them say, "he was over the front." So it is clearly based on a myth, not the reality of verticality which the rulebook uses.

Peace

With all due respect, I don't think this is a matter of merely splitting hairs. "Over-the-back" is believed by MANY people to be a legitimate foul and they ASSUME it's in the rulebook. Perpetuating that misconception doesn't make sense.

I don't disagree, and never did, that the public is ignorant of the fact that not every "over the back" situation is illegal. They're ignorant of a lot of things :D

My point is that sometimes a foul does occur. And using "over the back" helps me explain it to a player or coach, even if I don't report it to the table that way.

This notion that not using the rulebook term verbatim perpetuates some kind of gross misinterpretation of the rules is total crap IMO. If people can figure out that it's not necessarily a foul to bump a guy in the low post, or that not every contact with the hand is a hack, they can figure out that not every rebound from behind is a foul.

There's lots of terms being used out there that aren't in the rulebook. That's what I meant by splitting hairs.

I can't say I have ever heard a coach or a fan yell "Over the back" when there was no contact at all. The contact may not have been enough in the official's eyes to warrant a foul, but that doesn't mean that there was no contact at all. When they yell that, they are saying they disagree with the no-call on a particular play. They are using a clear shorthand for "That was a push on Number 33! Remember 'It is a form of pushing when the player holding the ball is contacted by a defensive player who approaches from behind.'" They are also saying they don't think it was incidental contact.

While I dropped the term "over the back" from my coaching (and howling) vocabulary quite a while ago, I have never met anybody who thinks it is a foul to reach over someone without touching them. Likewise, I don't know of any coach who thinks "reaching in" without contact is a foul. If there are such people, officials not using those terms during a game will not cure them of their ignorance. The terms are descriptive of actions that precipitated the foul, and most people are smart enough to realize that. Canuckrefguy's attempts to communicate with the coaches and fans improve game management, they don't perpetuate some strange idea that there can be personal fouls without contact.

The problem comes with how the coach and the various fans hear the phrase, "Over the Back." If they think that reaching over without contact is a foul, they hear you re-affirm that reaching over without contact is a foul. If you say "push", they hear that pushing is a foul, but they don't necessarily hear that contact is the criteria. I use the words, "There was a lot of contact" quietly to the coach after reporting, to indicate that the "over the back" wasn't the problem. If they ask about a no-call, I say, "Over the back isn't a foul, unless there's too much contact."

This is a big "IF" in my experience. Most people HAVEN"T figured out that "it's not necessarily a foul to bump a guy in the low post", and that "not every contact with the hand is a hack, and that reaching in without contact is not a foul", and that over the back without contact is not a foul. Many, many coaches don't know these rules well at all. Many, many players and many, many fans don't know them. They get all bent out of shape about no-calls, and aren't careful about understanding the game, to their own detriment. If we use proper language, and keep explaining the situation carefully, at least we aren't contributing to the problem, even if we can't fix it.

Absolutely! Remember, when I originated this thread, my issue was with an Assistant Coach who was repeatedly yelling to his boys on the floor, saying "Well, I guess these refs think they took 'over-the-back' out of the rulebook."

I think you may be giving a lot of people waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy too much credit. Most coaches/players/fans are extremely biased, which is totally expected and not a bad thing. They're rooting for their team, and want every call to go their way. So if they see 100 rebounds-from-behind and no foul call, their conclusion is likely NOT going to be, "Hmmm, there must be no such thing as 'over the back' ". Rather, they'll probably be thinking, "We just screwed by that ref 100 times in a row!"

Just my opinion, of course.

Chuck

Butch, where do you officiate?!?! Can I come and join you? B/c we get morons that yell for this all the time where I am.

Chuck

So if they see 100 rebounds-from-behind and no foul call, their conclusion is likely NOT going to be, "Hmmm, there must be no such thing as 'over the back' ". [/B][/QUOTE]Would you call this "over the back"?
http://www.uselessgraphics.com/carto96.gif

It's not that I don't hear it at all - it's just that there has always been some contact involved. The people rooting for their teams are going to see all contact in those situations as fouls, the same way they see their own version of charging or blocking. Sure, there is a dearth of understanding of the details of the rules, but I'm convinced the underlying culprit when we hear the cries is a lack of objectivity, not a misguided notion that you can have a personal foul without contact.

Well, maybe it's regional, because folks around here are definitely "misguided" not just biased. Anytime I say to a player, "Did you know that "over-the-back" is not a foul?" they look stupefied. After I explain about contact being the only foul, they either argue or run to their coach and try to understand. Same for reaching in. Coach is yelling, "He's reaching. Don't you see that reach?" "Yes, coach, I see it" "So why don't you call it?" "If there's no contact, there's no foul." "No, no, any reach is a foul." I even had one coach explain about reaching into "the cylinder". I thnk he meant an imaginary cylinder around the ball-handler's body, although that wasn't made clear. Anyway, the point is, people DON"T understand the rules. And language DOES make a huge difference.

I'm going to take a little different approach here...

There IS a reason for all this madness. In my opinion, there SHOULD be a signal for over the back and it should be described as "Over the Back" (Was that ever the actual call somewhere in the past?). When a player climbs over someone's back for a rebound, I call and signal a push but actually looking at the play, the player committing the foul hasn't really "pushed" anyone. He went "over someone's back" to gain an advantage. Usually, as long as I blow it dead and I call the foul on the player who obviously "went over someone's back", I never hear any complaints. But, honestly, why call something (a push) that actually appears to be (climbing over someone's back). It's tough enough trying to make everyone understand what's going on out there without adding fuel to the fire by implying something that could be described in a better way. I'm all for change if I think it will help improve the understanding of the game. I think this would.

I guess I'm feeling a little funky tonight....

RR

That's exactly the point. Fans, coaches, and players think it's a foul whether there's contact or not. That's the real crime.

[Edited by BktBallRef on Feb 18th, 2003 at 10:31 AM]

I have. I have. I have.

But it is a push, usually a push with the body as he jumps into the player in front. If nothing else, you could call it "charging" while giving the push signal. That would be accurate.
Of course, people confuse that with PC fouls, so it probably wouldn't be any better. But it would be most accurate, I think.

snaqwells