Putting hands on official? (Video added)

[legend]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Basketball has always been a city game, played by city kids, at first Jewish kids, then Irish kids, and now, by many African American kids, without easy access to baseball fields, football fields, or hockey rinks, but with easy access to parks with lots, and lots, of basketball courts.

The suburban games, and rural games, are basketball, but they're a very different type of basketball. Not better. Not worse. Just different. I'm fortunate that I can officiate all different kinds of basketball here in my little corner of Connecticut, city, suburban, and rural, and I enjoy officiating all three types. I would probably have a problem if I only officiated city games and then had to do a game in a rural community. Contact that kids can play through in the city, they can't play through in the country. City games seem to move at a faster pace. The coaching is different. The players are different. The parents, and other fans, are different. And each group has a different expectation about how the game will officiated. It's the same game, but it's different, and very hard to explain, without being condescending to a particular group, or thought of as a racist, or a country-phile, or a city-phile.

Great post...my guess is that one would just have to work both city and rural leagues to truly understand the differences in both. I vividly remember the first city league game I worked and (my guess is that) I seemed completely overwhelmed the first few minuets getting adjusted to the speed and athleticism the city kids had. You just simply can't officiate the two types of games the same. You see some of the plays that the city kids do and they are things that no rural kid that I've ever seen would be able to accomplish.

[Adam]

Typically, it seems to me the difference is more about the size of the school than the geographic location of the school. I work a lot of big school city ball, small school city ball, and rural ball (some rural schools are actually closer to me than some city schools within the local city limits), and school size is the biggest difference. Bigger schools have bigger talent pools from which to draw players, so the players are faster, stronger, taller, and play higher.

The key is to be flexible enough to recognize when contact presents an advantage and when it doesn't.

[twocentsworth]

just watched the first half....this crew wasn't ready for this game. Several plays/actions took place and the crew didn't know what to do/how to handle.....

regardless, players/coaches CAN'T let their emotions cause them to react as poorly as players/coaches did on both sides.....

[JetMetFan]

Originally Posted by twocentsworth

just watched the first half....this crew wasn't ready for this game. Several plays/actions took place and the crew didn't know what to do/how to handle.....

I agree. I think some of the contact - especially the no-calls on block-charge situations - caught them off guard. Once those happened they were in trouble.

Another thing that struck me: the body language of the crew during some of the situations. Example: the look on the official's face when he called the T on Blue #55. Also, the look on the officials' faces when they addressed the coaches. Again, I wasn't there and I have no idea what was said but one thing discussed in other threads is trying to keep emotion out of things when making calls.

I'm planning to post some plays from the 1st half when I get home from work later this morning. As always, I'm not doing it to ride the officials. We've all been there at some point. It's more to show how a couple of calls here and there can change things for the better...both for the game and for us.