Long Distance Call
 

Tonight, BV, 2 man. I'm trail, A1 working one on one against pressure applied by B1 at the division line near my sideline. There was a significant amount of body contact but A1 was about to turn the corner and come free so I let it go, and then I heard the whistle. Partner, from his proper position as lead, across the lane from the play on the endline, had his fist up.

SURELY HE'S GOT SOMETHING OVER THERE, OFF-BALL

Then he put his hand behind his head.

SURELY HE MEANS TEAM CONTROL, BUT MADE THAT SIGNAL BY MISTAKE

Nope. Player control on A1. Going the other way. I was told that my annoyance was obvious to everyone.

Body contact by who? The way you write it seems like the only foul to be called is a block on B1.

Did you ask your partner what he saw?

Sure did. He said the dribbler hooked him with his elbow to get around.

Your post mentions long-distance calling and your annoyance, but was he right?

You tell me. Is it possible to make a call 40 feet across the court which is 6 feet in front of your partner while the other 8 players between you and the matchup mind their own business?

Well he did make a call :P, I think you mean correct call. And while he is definitely not focusing on his primary and trusting you, I have yet to hear you say his call was wrong....just really, really, really far away.

I obviously didn't think it was correct or I would have called it myself.

Aside from that call, how was your partner otherwise?

So-so. In his defense, he's a second year guy who had never called anything before last year. He doesn't need to be thrown in the varsity fire at this point, but our assignment system is, uh, interesting.

Was he receptive to the oh-so-tactful discussion you had with him about the call? :)

very much so

Sorry....do you mean he rarely called fouls and violations during his games, or had never called the level of game you were working?

At least he gets it. I work with other veterans who haven't quite figured out that part of things yet.

I mean he had never owned a whistle before last year.

Geesh
 

Ball watching maybe how as he the rest of the game???

2nd year official? I'm not getting upset about it b/c he doesn't know better. Educational opportunity.

I thought the goal was to get the right call regardless of WHERE the call is made. :confused:

This is a timely post. I had a partner last night that I have worked with before, but mostly small school varsity stuff and we haven't had any issues. Last night in a tournament we get a 5A school (largest class) against a 3A school, and they're right next to each other so the place is packed.

There were three or four times where he reached really far out of his area to get stuff right in front of me. They were mostly when I was the Lead and there would be a play either right on the block or even outside the lane right in front of me. At one point a V player gets fouled by a H player on the block on my side and as I put my hand up, he is stopping the clock and starting to call a travel. We get together and I tell him we are going with my foul since the play was in my area. He would also talk to coaches entirely too much when they complained about a foul call, including turning his back to me to talk to the coach on the other end when we were about to shoot free throws.

He also never instructed the timer to start the clock for the replacement interval when a player was DQ'd. He would go notify the coach of the player's fifth foul, then proceed to stand there and have a discussion with him about the merits of the fifth foul instead of asking for a sub. About the third time this happened, the other coach asked me what we were waiting on. I just kind of shrugged and looked at the other end of the court.

I have to work with him at least two more times, so I'm going to hold off on saying anything until I can slip some of this stuff into a pregame and hopefully get the point across in a tactful way.

Funny you mentioned the clock after a DQ foul. I was watching a game a few years ago where one of the officials did the same thing. On the second player fouling out, one of his crew mates walked over and started the clock over him. I could tell he was pissed, too.

The lesson is easy. If the coach wants to complain about the call, he does it WITH THE CLOCK RUNNING. Coach, that's 5 on 24. Timer: GO. Can't complain much in 5 seconds, can he?

In our area, where all Varsity officials are expected to come early and evaluate the sub-varsity officials, such a call, as in the OP, will be a topic of the evaluation, and definitely in a negative manner.
This year, I've opened my early afternoons to work more sub-varsity games w/newer, younger officials, at the request of our assignor. Last week, late in a game with a first year,/first HS game official, he made such a call, and the call was wrong. I addressed the situation by saying, "You would have to do something really terrible to upset me, as a partner, which this was not. You may have 99 good call/no-call's in a game and the one - "across the key, out-of-your-area, on-top-of-your-partner" call will be the only thing the evaluator will focus on."
The local mind-set is that to make such a call, it must be a sportsmanship or safety issue, or a game-saver, and/or crew-saver.

Your "confusion" is making me laugh. :)

Oh, I agree.
:D

I was afraid Adam had been hacked, or had an evil twin.

2nd Year Official doing Boys Varsity? WOW!

This post got me thinking...HOW rare is it that a 2nd Year Official could even be ready for a Varsity contest?

Example:

Rarer than a four leaf clover?

Sometimes people think they're ready when they're really not. What's odd about that is that you don't really know that you're not ready then until you are...sometimes years later.

True...

and I believe if you get that call to do Varsity...

you had better be ready.

If you are not ready (rules knowledge, court presence, mechanics, etc.) it can really hurt your advancement. You may get there eventually...but, it usually slows down your climb compared to if you were more prepared to start with.

Moral of Story: Be Patient! Be Prepared! Be Ready!

"If you are also watching the matchup in front of me, who is watching the other 8 players?"

Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun ...
 

Assuming that this was a double whistle, this is how the conversation would go between me, and my partner:

Me: I saw your travel, but he traveled because he got fouled first.
Partner: OK. The foul came first. Go report your foul.

Or:

Me: What did you have, because I've got a foul?
Partner: I saw him travel right before he got clobbered.
Me. OK. The travel came first. Go ahead and signal your travel violation.

If we can't acknowledge the other official's call, or if we can't decide which call came first, then we're discussing who had the best look, which would probably be the official who had the play occur in his primary coverage area.

That's the way we handle double whistles here in my little corner of Connecticut, but, as usual, when in Rome ...

If all 8 are in his primary, you probably have some sort of violation. :)

That is almost a direct quote of one of the things I said to him.

I might have had difficulty just showing my annoyance. =-O :eek:

As a second year official, I am working 15 varsity contests this year. I feel and have been told that I am "ready". I did the scorebook for 40+ games for 5 years before officiating. Also, I watch this forum with all you great and wise officials :D. Plus I do camps and am part of a mentoring program.

All that being said, the biggest thing I pre-game about is PRIMARY. I didn't take me long, to realize older and more veteran officials watching the entire court. I now pre-game appropriately so that does not happen. Now if there is a train wreck that is missed, feel free.

If my partner for the night reached from 60' away......I wouldn't say anything at that time. However, I would politely at the first timeout.

Let me known your opinion about mentioning (not going into) court coverages with the coaches before the game. What do you think? I think some don't really know about them and may complain less during the game.

My opinion is court coverage is not something I would EVER discuss with coaches. They already comment on it, sorta.

When they don't get the call they want, they look at the far official: "C'mon, you gotta give him some help on that."


When they think they got away with one, then a whistle sounds from a different official: "Oh, my God! That's not your call! How can you call that from there?"

Personally, I don't mind my partner(s) making calls in my primary. But in this case, and others like it, there's no reason they should be looking there. Right call or not, I'd still be thinking "WTF".

Last year I had a partner attempt to use this line of reasoning to call a hand check just after the dribbler crossed the mid court line. He was lead. I was trail. This guy never got it. He had officiated someplace else for the past 5 years. He's not working with us this year. We don't miss him.

Be careful with that approach. As the new guy, you're probably not going to change many of them and they can probably cause you more trouble then it would be worth.

Get the elephants, not the ants.

Peace

Another Metaphor ...
 

Get the felonies, not the misdemeanors.

(Don't quote me, this belongs to someone else on the Forum.)

For the record I have heard both.

Peace

We have posters who regularly spout this line of reasoning in discussions on this discussion board; but when it's their pond being poached....

I am often my own evil twin.

Quote from Bill Lemonnier (Big 10 Football Referee, retiring after this season):
Fish in my pond if you have to, just make sure you catch a big fish.

I like this. I will endeavor to give you and Bill the appropriate credit when I plagiarize the crud out if it.

The problem with all these sayings is that one person's whale / elephant / felony is another person's minnow / ant / misdemeanor.

I was watching two JV officials work last week. Within 2 minutes, I saw the same official make two calls from at least 60 feet away.

At that point, I went into the locker room to get dressed. Couldn't watch any more...

And that is why some official's judgments are put in higher regard than others. And when assignments come out, some get certain assignments and others are sitting on the sidelines no matter what terms or phrase you use.

Peace

For us newer officials, is there any guidance you can give to differentiate minnows from whales?

I have been taught three things about calling out of my PCA:
1. Absolutely if it's flagrant / technical.
2. Save the crew (related to #1)
3. Be late, be right, be needed.

Whales are marine mammals, whereas minnow is a common term used for small fish.

4. Know who you are working with.

I live 15 minutes from a D1 college, so I've often been invited to work their scrimmages over the years by one a local Big Dawg. One time a fellow D3 colleague made a call from the Trail in front of the Lead (Big Dawg). On the sideline when discussing the play, another mini-Big Dawg bascially said, if Mr. "Big Dawg" is passing on that contact, you shouldn't be coming out of your primary to make that call.

On the other hand, this summer I worked a camp and worked with a brand new official, so made at least 3-4 calls in front him and after the game Ed Malloy thanked me for extending my coverage to grab those fouls.

This is something you either understand or you don't. And yes you could be given some guidance, but that is going to come with seeing these plays on video or watch games live and talk to the people that are making these decisions. After all we have people here that claim that things are missed in slow motion but do not tell you how you are going to make the call or how you would see the entire play even when video is shown. There is no magic bullets to this thing. And most of all you have to work with enough people and see enough plays and understand the interpretations to know what should or should not be done on any given situation IMO.

Peace

In the OP, what makes it so bad is the combination of all things:

1. The distance. This is actually the least of it. In a two man game, when you have a couple of turnovers and have all players spread out in transition, making a call a long distance away is not so unusual, and sometimes necessary.

2. It was right in front of me. There was no question of me being screened from the play or watching something else. It was all mine.

3. As others have said, it must really be something big to consider a whistle here and this definitely was not.


When you combine all the factors, I felt that it was hard to overstate to him how serious this was. I told him that for him to have a whistle here it should involve a big long roundhouse kick to the groin or something similar, followed by a significant pause to be sure his partner wasn't going to get it. And I then went on to explain that he shouldn't even have a whistle then, because he shouldn't have seen it because of where he was and where this exchange had taken place.

Meh this doesn't sound so bad- especially for a 2nd year guy.

A few years ago I had a partner who has been around 30 years (30 to many) call a travel 6 feet in front of me on the low block. He's trail. I'm lead. Kid does not travel and I hear tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet travel.

I take a deep breath and put the ball back in play. Then this guy whack's the coach because the coach is justifiably pissed. I asked him at the quarter break why he called a travel that wasn't a travel. He tells me that travels in the key are the trails call.

It was a long night.

Well he is right. When there is post play Trail is responsible for the travel. Not saying there was a travel but he is not wrong to call it if he sees it.

One of my weak points in my basketball officiating... If I'm the lead, and there's a post player in my area with the ball, and she travels... I'll only notice the travel about 15% of the time. I'm watching upper body contact, looking for traveling violations in that situation is something I'm not very good at yet.

I always tell my partners that if they call a travel on a post player when I'm lead... I'm totally ok with it.

Here in my neck of the woods we put first year officials in varsity contests...when I say "we" I mean my pool of course of which I have zero input in decisions.

No way they are ready!!

While you'll never be able to see them all from the lead, you'll see a lot more if you take 1-2 steps back from the play...either away from the endline or away from the lane. Doing so will give you a much better view of the players from head-to-toe and it might even improve your ability to see some types of fouls too.

I'd like to introduce you to some of our smaller, older gyms. "Back up" would mean "climb the wall." :D

Where I have room, I work D-E-E-P. Sometimes, you just do the best you can, and that includes the T/C helping out with travels down low or in the lane.

Understand that in some necks of the woods, there are varsity games that are perfect for newer officials to learn to be veteran officials. Especially outside of district play when games are sometimes 70-13.

I do the same thing, when I can. But in about half of the gyms around here there's less than 10 feet from endline to wall, sometimes as little as 4 feet.

When I have space, it's not uncommon for me to be 15 feet off the endline as the lead.

Which is why I included..."either away from the endline or away from the lane."

Staying close to the lane when you have no room to back up is a horrible place to be for plays at the basket.

Really? I hope this is an exaggeration. If not, you need to reconsider your philosophy. I understand moving back to get a better angle, but once you are past 6-8 feet you stop improving your angle and start putting yourself in a worse position.

I agree....15 feet out of bounds serves no purpose. That is just way too far from any play that needs to be covered. Even if you had the perfect angle on a play, your ability to move to maintain that angle is greatly limited since the distance you need to move to keep an angle is amplified by increase in distance.

Away from the lane is a mixed bag. Gives a great look, but then the ball gets thrown inside and you're straight lined or blocked by two players between you and where the pass is going.

I love going places with a lot of room. And I agree with something else said -- I'm probably never more than 8 feet off the end line. But I do get a bit deeper in 2-person than I do in 3-person.

If you say so Mike...

Maybe two schools competing with vastly different talent levels...(70-13)?

you could HIDE a first year official...

but, I still think that 1st year person would be a RARE official indeed, to actually be READY.

P.S. Around these neck of the woods...H.S. Boys Varsity...it's pretty competitive...I've only had one "Mercy" game since they came out with the 40 pt. rule.