how many fouls is too many?

[Moosie74]

Originally Posted by Rich

42 in a half is a lot of fouls. I'm not saying it's too many in this instance, but *others that were there did*.

(42 in 16 minutes means a foul every 22.85 seconds. That's a lot of fouls.)

My partner and I called a boys JV game the other night and called 22 fouls the entire night.

We had the rough stuff, the hand checking and all that, once there were a couple of calls for each offense, the players figured it out and stopped.

The players will adjust to the officials style if you let them but there has to be a consistency established for that to happen.

As a second year official I very rarely feel that I have passed on too many calls in a game.

You need to find a balance in your game and in your ability to judge what is a foul, what is contact and what is really going to affect the game. The players and coaches don't want to spend the game shooting foul shots.

Using Rich's numbers at 1 every 22 seconds, you're essentially calling a foul every other trip down the floor.

I think I can safely say part of the reason we officiate is that we do it for fun, blowing the whistle every other trip down the floor is not fun for us and it is especially not fun for the people involved.