Welcome to the club lol. If you are not mentally tired after doing vball then you aren't doing it right.

I watched the Miami-Wake Forest Volleyball game that was on TV last night. It was mentally tiring just watching it trying to take it all in.

I think working any sport is mentally demanding, because as you start out, you're thinking about where you are, where you should be, what the call is, what the rule is, etc. Throw in the the physical part and it's that much more of a challenge.

I know a guy who is a flagger at a local NASCAR track, he is gets tired from all the mental and organizational tasks he's doing while the cars are racing.

The throwing of the flags is very little of all the things he does.

Its the same thing though to officiate something well you have to have the energy invested in it

I agree with you about alignment/rotations. It continues to be a work-in-progress. One of these days I may just call a violation for it.

Congrats and kudos to you on your new career.

alignment/rotation
 

As a down Official (R2), I keep a piece of paper in my pocket that have the original alignment. On this paper I record subsitution and serves. The 1st time they serve I place a '1' near their number. The 2nd time thru I turn the '1' into a '+'. The 3rd time I circle the plus sign. I cheat and look at this throughout the set. It has helped me in identifying overlapping many times. Maybe someday I will be good enough and won't have to use my cheat sheet.

I did VB for about three years. It was by far the most mentally challenging of any sport I've worked. I put it down to the constant decision making as R1. They only thing that comes close is calling balls and strikes in baseball but that's only once every 20-30 seconds.

At any rate, I've never come away from a basketball game any where near as mentally fatigued as I did from an average VB match.