Agreed. Worked a scrimmage last Saturday with several less experienced officials. Observed them work a 15 min. running clock quarter. I saw:

The L call the T's line.
The L going to retrieve a blocked shot while the defender was taunting the shooter.
The C close on the same play but didn't have enough sense to see what was going on with the defender.
The T stand inside the thrower and administer the throw-in.
The L stand under the basket to the point that the C and T didn't know who was suppose to be the new L in transistion.

The icing on the cake was there was an excuse for everything that I tried to point out. :(

In my world there is big difference between teaching and mentoring a new/young official on how to officiate vs. getting into a debate with a veteran official who is misapplying a rule.

One has nothing to do with the other. The thread was about veterans who are too "...fill in the blank..." to bring along new officials not a thread about hard-headed officials who won't admit when they are wrong.

For the guys who think some veterans can't be told anything by the new guy, that is no more true than the new know it all who can't be told anything.
It goes both ways!

I used to feel the same way as the OP. But all vets arent like that, you will find someone that takes interest in you once you begin to help yourself. Attending camps, showing up at camps even though you aren't attending, staying for varsity games, asking to sit in on pre/postgames, volunteering to turn 2 person into 3s just for your experience. Those are some of the ways good vets will take notice & be willing to help you.

Another thing you may want check when giving vets advice or rules clarification is, how you say it... sometimes its not what you say.

JMO

Fair enough. Then, back on topic, yes, I have encountered my fair share of veteran officials who see a rookie and automatically assume they are not worth spending time talking to, mentoring, helping, whatever term you want to use, and therefore don't want to "waste" their time trying to do so. They'll encounter someone new and say things like "spoken like a true rookie," or something to that effect, displaying a general disdain for officials with fewer games under their belt. Or they will have a poor experience with a rookie or group of rookies, then assume all new officials are like that.

Whether that has to do with money, insecurity or whatever, I think that largely depends on the individual official. Everyone has their own motivations for acting the way they do.

That being said, I have encountered the exact opposite, officials who will go out of their way to give you an unbiased assessment of your skills and help you navigate the land mine of egos within the association. I found one such official, and it's made all the difference in my young career.

So, in the end, I think none of this has anything to do with basketball, and everything to do with the fact that some people are just dicks.

Yep. And in my world officials debate stuff all the time with fellow officials. Sometimes we have to get clarification from a rules interpreter or state administrator to get a final answer. But to have a debate where people initially do not back down is common. And many times it requires a rulebook or casebook to be pulled out.

And one of the biggest things younger officials do, is they try to put the blame on others instead of looking in the mirror. In other words instead of worrying about their mechanics, they worry about why someone that has more credibility is doing something.

Peace

I didn't say mentors. My point was that you are so arrogant you think only 4 guys know enough to ever give you advice. I'm pretty sure there are more than 4 out of 6,000 that are qualified to give you advice. Whether you would want to listen to them or not is a different story.



How is that? At what point is someone not a rookie anymore? This is my fifth year and I work a full varsity schedule and have worked postseason games already. Am I still a rookie? Is anyone with less experience than you a rookie?

We know you're god's gift to officiating, you've made that perfectly clear a number of times on here. Unfortunately you give a bad name to the veteran officials who are approachable and try to help whenever asked. Fortunately they do outnumber the ones like you, but one wouldn't know that from reading your diatribes on this board.

JRut regularly works state clinics as an observer so I don't know how you can come to the conclussion that isn't approachable nor helpful with younger officials.

You can be God's gift to officiating and a mentor. The 2 are now mutually exclusive. ;)

And for the record, there are older officials who will help you as much as you want and will do everything they can to help you succeed, and there are also older officials who will do absolutely nothing because they see you as a threat. It goes both ways.

I wasn't really trying to say that he isn't helpful if asked...although it does come off that way at times.

From reading his posts, he insinuated that most veterans don't want to be helpful because younger officials won't listen, which isn't always true. Like I said above, a lot of the ones who don't want to help younger guys are like that because they're afraid they'll be a threat in the near future.

As far as arguments over rules go, there are 2nd year guys and 15th year guys who don't know the rules. It is just more frustrating when a 15th year guy refuses to even discuss the possibility that he may be wrong (When he is definitely wrong) because he's too proud. The 2nd year guy most of the time is just ignorant because of a lack of experience.

You have only been doing this for about 4 years right? I have been doing this for going into my 16th year and having lived in two totally different places in my state. I have had mentors that I listen to the most. If I listened to everyone that gave me advice over the years, I would not be where I am today as an official and in some board positions that I currently hold. I would not have worked the levels, post season or tournaments as many would claim I could not do that or that they would not share that information. You probably do not even realize the very thing you are disagreeing with you seem to make a claim of veterans. ;)

I will work one of the biggest assignments of my life in a couple of weeks with two people that if they did not give me a shot or help me, I would not be where I am today not only as an official in this sport, but another sport because they encouraged me. And I get to work with two of them in this assignment, but you do not understand why I said out of all those officials I would only listen to 4 people? LOL!!!! Keep living and you will one day see what I am talking about. None of us accomplish anything in this without a very select few helping us.

Rookie has little to do with years of experience, but a mindset. You could be have 10 years of officiating experience and still be a rookie in your mentality. And if you think a disagreement with another official over a rule is the same as not helping a younger official, then that is all I need to say about that.

Not God's gift, but certainly more knowledgeable then you appear to be at this of our careers in officiating. When you deal with as much people that I did just this week alone then talk to me. Tonight I would have been involved in training younger and veterans with over 100 officials, first on Monday were over 60 attended my basketball class that I am the founder of and the other is an organization where I am President.

Basketball Training Class | Inter-Athletic Council of OfficialsJust Monday

Peace

And your evidence for this character aspersion is what?

My experience is that some vets don't bother because some new guys don't care. Neither applies to all, but I've rarely seen a vet back off because he saw the newbie as a threat. That's just ridiculous.

Let me say that veterans like that are not the majority.

The ones I'm speaking of don't "back off", they are generally off-putting and short to begin with. Don't want to pregame much, won't communicate on the court, etc. Most of them are good officials, they just aren't interested in giving the time of day to someone who isn't one of their buddies. I'm not saying that most veterans are like that, quite the opposite actually, but they do exist.

You're confusing me. For one, I'm not which category you put or don't put most officials into.

Second, your judgment of their motives, in the previous post to which I responded, indicates a judgment that can't possibly be warranted.

I don't put most officials into the category of "I'm too good to work with a younger official". Those guys are the minority, but I'm just making the point that they do exist.

I guess there is no way to know for sure what their motives are, but after working with several it seems to become apparent.

There are a lot of good veteran officials that are great to work with in my area, and I do agree with JRut in that you should only listen to a few. It becomes obvious who the ones are that A) Want to genuinely help you, and B) Know what the hell they're talking about.