I finally made it

[jTheUmp]

After nearly 3 seasons of basketball officiating, spanning just shy of 300 games, tonight I have my first varsity assignment.

Granted, it's between 2 sub-500 teams (combined record is something like 7-30), and it's going to be a 150-mile round-trip for me to get there, but still.

As one of my association's clinicians says: "If I told you there was $70 under a rock 70 miles from here, would you go get it? Probably not. But if I told you that you could 70 miles to get yelled at by coaches and fans for an hour and a half for that $70, you'd go."

Can't wait.

[zm1283]

Originally Posted by jTheUmp

After nearly 3 seasons of basketball officiating, spanning just shy of 300 games, tonight I have my first varsity assignment.

Granted, it's between 2 sub-500 teams (combined record is something like 7-30), and it's going to be a 150-mile round-trip for me to get there, but still.

As one of my association's clinicians says: "If I told you there was $70 under a rock 70 miles from here, would you go get it? Probably not. But if I told you that you could 70 miles to get yelled at by coaches and fans for an hour and a half for that $70, you'd go."

Can't wait.

Congrats. Call the obvious, slow everything down, and don't screw up.

[Scuba_ref]

If two teams are equally poor then you still have a competitive match-up. The other day I had a BV game between two schools that are both having a down year; one of the GV refs mentioned that we could probably expect as equally poor of a game as they had.

Well our game was tied at the half and a one point win for the visitors after a missed final attempt at the buzzer by the home team. So, be ready for anything and enjoy your game!

[Toren]

Originally Posted by jTheUmp

After nearly 3 seasons of basketball officiating, spanning just shy of 300 games, tonight I have my first varsity assignment.

Granted, it's between 2 sub-500 teams (combined record is something like 7-30), and it's going to be a 150-mile round-trip for me to get there, but still.

As one of my association's clinicians says: "If I told you there was $70 under a rock 70 miles from here, would you go get it? Probably not. But if I told you that you could 70 miles to get yelled at by coaches and fans for an hour and a half for that $70, you'd go."

Can't wait.

That's awesome. No advice, you are obviously ready otherwise you wouldn't have earned this game. Have fun (is that advice?).

[fullor30]

Originally Posted by jTheUmp

After nearly 3 seasons of basketball officiating, spanning just shy of 300 games, tonight I have my first varsity assignment.

Granted, it's between 2 sub-500 teams (combined record is something like 7-30), and it's going to be a 150-mile round-trip for me to get there, but still.

As one of my association's clinicians says: "If I told you there was $70 under a rock 70 miles from here, would you go get it? Probably not. But if I told you that you could 70 miles to get yelled at by coaches and fans for an hour and a half for that $70, you'd go."

Can't wait.

Mazatlan!

[Rufus]

Congrats and have fun.

[Rich]

You can have my game tonight - it starts at 7:30PM.

Oh, wait, you already have one. Congrats.

[SCalScoreKeeper]

Well done-go get 'em!

[SoInZebra]

good luck

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by jTheUmp

"If I told you there was $70 under a rock 70 miles from here, would you go get it? Probably not. But if I told you that you could 70 miles to get yelled at by coaches and fans for an hour and a half for that $70, you'd go."

$88.84 under the garnet mica schist rocks here in Connecticut. Also, it's a small state, my longest ride is 50 miles. Now would you go if there wasn't a game to officiate when you got there?

[Scrapper1]

Congrats! Always an exciting moment when you walk out there for your first game at a new level. Hope it went well.

[jTheUmp]

Well, I survived.

It was a girls JV/V doubleheader. The visiting team had 9 players... total... for both games combined.

I was definitely nervous starting out... luckily the JV game was first. Twice in a 2-minute span I nearly gave the throw-in to the wrong team (thankfully my partner corrected me before it was too late).

We had a 30 minute break between the JV and Varsity games, which gave us a chance to go back to our changing room, drink some gatorade, eat some popcorn, and go over a few things.

The varsity game went ok... The outcome was never really in doubt, as the home team had one player who was simply a better player than anyone on the visiting team... It never got closer then 6 points in the second half, and the home team ended up winning by about 20.

Coaches for both teams were great... There were only two calls that caused any sort of protest. One was a charge call that caused the Home coach to go into the whole "she wasn't set" routine. The other one was a blocking foul where I granted the H player the basket due to her continuous motion, which caused the V coach to try to convince me that there's no such thing as continuous motion in HS basketball.

The only really embarrassing thing was that the zipper on my pants decided that last night was the night that it should stop functioning properly, so there as a few-minute stretch in the second half where my zipper was loose and I couldn't do anything about it. Oh well, as far as I know nobody noticed but me.

After the game, my partner said he'd call our assigner and let him know that I did a good job and that he thought I was definitely ready to work at that level. That's always nice to hear.

[tref]

Way 2 GO!

[Rufus]

Congratulations again on a game well-called and for the positive feedback received!

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by jTheUmp

The only really embarrassing thing was that the zipper on my pants decided that last night was the night that it should stop functioning properly, so there as a few-minute stretch in the second half where my zipper was loose and I couldn't do anything about it. Oh well, as far as I know nobody noticed but me.

Semper ubi niger sub ubi.