Rebounding Contact (video)

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

You must have missed this part:

No, I addressed with the bolded part:

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

This has nothing to do with age, instead it comes from a lack of training and/or discipline. Needs to be one of the basics instilled into new officials.

Once it's taught the officials need to use it. I've found that really has nothing to do with the age of officials.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

I've found that really has nothing to do with the age of officials.

I've found otherwise, although age may be only one of a few factors. When officials get slower, due to age, joint, and muscle problems, weight gain, out of shape, lack of conditioning during the offseason, etc., they lose a step and can adjust in either one of two ways. One way is to bail out early on shots down one end to get a head start back to the other end of the court. The other way is to hang in there, as the trail on a shot, watching for rebounding action, and realize that they may not make it all the way back down to the endline in front of the players, and may have to use their experience to fight for a position, and a good look, from somewhere else other than the endline to catch the action in a fast break situation. Here in my little corner of Connecticut, we prefer that slower officials hang in there on a shot, and use their experience to get a good angle down the other end if they can't make it to the endline.

In my case, I admit, that I'm not the same weight that I was thirty-two years ago, but I haven't gained any appreciable weight in the past fifteen years. I still run on weekends in the off season, just like I've been doing the past thirty-plus years. I've even added a little bicycle riding, and paddling a kayak, to my workout routine. So why have I lost a few steps over the past fifteen years? Age, and the muscle, and joint, problems that have come with age, and a lifetime of running, tennis, bicycling, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, etc. My latest problem is patellofemoral pain syndrome. This may eventually do me in, I can't walk down a flight of stairs without some degree of pain. At this point, luckily, I can still run with no pain, but after I run is when the pain kicks in. My doctor says that it's an age related, overuse injury, that I have the knees of a ninety-nine year old man.

So age, and age related problems, are certainly part of the problem, not the entire problem, but a part of the problem. Now that I'm slower, I constantly have to fight the urge to bail out and get back early, an urge that I never had fifteen years ago. I can fight that urge, some can't.