Putting hands on official? (Video added)

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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.