New Referee on the town -- need advice

[Newbie-ref]

I will need some advice on Referee. I did a examination and did really poorly. The commissionar asked me to retry. Need to know what position of Trail and Lead and what advise to give out. Have 2 more chances at this. One for each orginization.

P.S. I have taken and passed the NFHS exam on the first try.

Newbie Ref.

Sorry if it is a dumb question.

[ontheway]

what specifically about Lead, and trail? did you do poorly on the mechanics section alone?

[APG]

You're going to have to give us more information...what exactly are you struggling on? What scenarios are you having trouble with?

[Tio]

Be sure to read the mechanics or officials manual. These usually have the basics of court positioning.

More importantly, see if your local HS association has a training program. I think most of us get better at officiating by doing it. The book is helpful too, but not a substitute for work on the court.

[kwatson]

Im new to it as well and my biggest problem is how to stop ball watching. Any trick or tips that will help me cure this bad habit would be appreciated.

[tref]

Originally Posted by kwatson

Im new to it as well and my biggest problem is how to stop ball watching. Any trick or tips that will help me cure this bad habit would be appreciated.

It takes a lot of self discipline & self talk to stop ball watching. At L my mindset is, "I have #32 white & # 44 blue, who could hurt us next? Uhh oh here comes #13 white."

Not only does that help you to focus on your PCA (while seeing as many of the other players as possible, with knowledge of ball/partner locations) should you have to call a foul on anybody in your PCA you already have their numbers locked in.

[fiasco]

Originally Posted by kwatson

Im new to it as well and my biggest problem is how to stop ball watching. Any trick or tips that will help me cure this bad habit would be appreciated.

Ball watching essentially means you don't trust your partner. If you trusted your partner, you wouldn't feel the need to watch the ball all the time.

I love catching off-ball fouls. In my evaluations, I've always been praised for getting fouls off the ball. That's because I trust my partner, and when the ball's not in my area, I'm looking for illegal contact away from the ball. When you start valuing refereeing contact and violations off-ball, you'll stop ball watching.

It's just about understanding your role on the floor and understanding that there's a lot of contact that goes on away from the ball. If you're ball watching all the time, you're not doing your job. Just care less about what the ball is doing and more about focusing in on your primary area of coverage. And remember that there's not a whole lot of point in watching the ball when it's out of your area anyway, because how bad is it going to look when you call a foul or travel that's right in front of your partner? Now you've thrown him under the bus and he doesn't trust you anymore.

[Freddy]

Originally Posted by kwatson

Im new to it as well and my biggest problem is how to stop ball watching. Any trick or tips that will help me cure this bad habit would be appreciated.

Since you inquired about specific "tricks" or "tips", rather than philosophy and "zen and the art of officiating", how might these help your quest?

A. Make it a point to review a printed sheet of the primary areas of coverage for either two or three-person prior to every game. What the mind sees gradually becomes integrated into a real-to-life setting. I've got a sheet with each official's primary shaded in a different color that I bring out every single pregame conference, regardless the veteran or rookie status of the personnel on the crew for the night.

B. Each time down the court, just before or perhaps right when the ball settles, manually bring your arms up just a little bit and actually point to and express to yourself the boundaries of your primary. What you visualize ahead of time gradually becomes what you prioritize when the action starts happening. Doing it every time early on makes considering your primary area more automatic as time goes on.

C. Get yourself a shock collar and give the remote control to a trusted observer sitting in the stands. Instruct him/her that every time your focus wanders from your primary.....ZAP!!! Should iron out any ball watching problems you have after two or three sets of undergarments.