New Referee on the town -- need advice

[fiasco]

Originally Posted by jdw3018

I agree that "not trusting your partner" isn't the cause of ball-watching for most new officials, and, at least the way it was worded in your post, came across as scolding.

Most people who watch a ballgame watch the ball. It's where the action is for most. When you move from observer to official, the natural tendency is to continue to want to know where the ball is. It's not that the newbie doesn't trust his partner, it's that he simply hasn't trained himself not to watch where the ball is.

Ball watching may be a symptom of not trusting your partner. But it's also a symptom of not knowing what to look for, where an official's primary may be, lack of focus, lack of action away from the ball, boredom, or a host of other causes. It many times has nothing to do with trust.

I agree with everything you've said.

The point I was trying to make is that one way to cure yourself of ball watching is to think about what it communicates to your partner, to coaches and others who are observing your behavior. Regardless of your intent in ball watching, one of the things you're communicating to others (whether you really mean it or not) is that you don't trust your partner to get the call right, and that you're not really concerned with off-ball action going on in your area.

When I learned that, I started making not ball-watching a priority in my mechanics. That's all.