Quarter Length
 

Long time listener, first time caller. First year officiating, worked every game as the official scorer at our local for 5 years and partnered with a guy that has been doing it a decade.

At a freshman girls game, the guy at the scoring table has 7 minutes on the clock to start the game. I have worked 5 games previously at the same school with the same scoring table. The coaches ask for 8 minutes per quarter, I told them that every previous game has been 7 minute quarters. They informed me that it is not up to you and that it's up to the coaches. I defer to my non-normal partner who really didn't give a darn, so he says sure.

I wanted to say, "I hope you are not keeping a win-loss record since your games don't have a consistent length. And if we have overtime, how long would you like that to be."

Has anyone ran across this? In 5 years of doing every middle school, JV, and Varsity games at the table I never heard of this coming up.

Who is it up to? Thanks,

Ben

Rule 5-5-2...for your viewing pleasure...
 

...and 5-5-3

Quite frankly, it's none of the officials' concern how long the quarters are at the subvarsity level. Some conferences play 7 minutes, and others play 8.

hoorah!!
 

Some play 6 - at least around here.

Sub-varsity NEVER has 8 minute quarters in my state. JV is always 7, frosh is 6 or 7 (6 whenever possible for me).

One frosh girls game, I talked the table into 6 minute quarters for the first half, and the coaches got together and changed to 7 minutes for the second half.

And the universe didn't collapse.

Weird.

MN does halves, not quarters:
18 min for Varsity
16 min for JV
14 min for 9th grade
12 min for 7th/8th

I've had a few exceptions to this... 12 minute 9th grade game with a 14 minute JV game on a night when the start of the 9th grade game was delayed 45 minutes due to bus-stuck-in-traffic issues, for example.

Also, one school up here does a "5th quarter" for their 9th grade games: 8 minute running time and they add an extra $8 into our game checks. Yes, I think I can work for an extra dollar per minute, thank you very much.

Let them play 8 minute quarters. Either don't officiate for the last minute of each quarter, or (better), just leave at the 4 minute mark of the last quarter. That will show them who is boss, and your officiating career will skyrocket.

-OR-

Work the game graciously, and contact your assigner afterwards to seek clarification.

Some states mandate the quarter length. In Missouri, JV can play 6, 7, or 8. Freshmen can play 6 or 7. JH plays 6.

All OT is 2 minutes if the quarters are anything other than 8 minutes.

Around here, there's no standard except within a given league. Most JV games are 8 minute quarters. I've had two JV games shortened to 6 minute quarters, one due to tight scheduling, the other at the coach's request last minute as he had about 10 total players between his JV and varsity teams.

We get paid $45 for 6 minute Quarters $50 for 7 minute Quarters.

So, it is our business here.

It's not your business to tell the teams what to play, though. If they play 7, collect $50.

The other week at my school, they changed two middle school games to 3 middle school games. Granted they shortened the quarters and warm up times of the games, but it still went an hour and half longer than normal. The referees were not real happy about the extra time for no extra pay, nor was I at the scoring table.

I have an email into the AD for clarification. I totally understand that it is Freshman level basketball and records don't truly matter.

Now that seems like dirty pool. It's one thing to change the parameters of one game, that's within their purview. But to add games without notification? Did they at least politely ask the refs to stay for the extra game or just assumed they would? What if one had a conflict?

Yes, they choose. Most choose 7 minutes and we are good with that.