ABST Season is here!

[Rich]

I was working as a clinician yesterday at a clinic attached to a boys varsity scrimmage. So I spent quite a bit of time getting people in the right places -- I mostly tried to encourage people to close down at the right time and rotate more often at the right times and to move and to remember their primaries and call their games. Problem around here is that there just isn't enough 3-person for the average official to get any good at it. Many officials will work full varsity schedules and not work any 3-person because they don't work those conferences.

Of course, the coaches were in mid-season coach mode and because there was a guy in a track suit there instructing the officials, I had them working me as well -- assuming these officials were incompetent and imploring me to "help" them.

Actually, I found it an interesting exercise for me, as I couldn't simply ignore these guys and I certainly wasn't going to throw the officials under the bus, either.

One guy would've probably reached the threshold with me. He was yelling at one of the officials and tried engaging me, but as soon as he started working the official hard, I walked to the far corner of the gym to watch -- if he wanted to talk to me, he was going to have to yell a long way.

Then I went to the Badgers game where Bo Ryan absolutely ripped one of the officials after a foul call (and during a media timeout). He's up by 30 with 8 minutes left in the game and he's screaming at this guy like he made the worst call imaginable in a critical situation.

Some guys just can't turn it off, I guess.