what to do when you know you and your crew had an awful game
 

Last night my crew and I worked a varsity boys game. It was a fast paced game that in my opinion was out of control and should've slowed down, but thats here nor there. My crew included myself (official of 5 years but with only a dozen varsity games), a 7 year veteran with only 20 varsity game experience, and a first time varsity official with no varsity or three man game experience.
The game started off ok but QUICKLY became a train wreck. As i mentioned it was not a well played game. But to compound that the rookie on the crew had the deer in headlights look. He did not have a good half at all. Which ended with him not understanding that he had the last shot opposite of the table. A shot was made that was clearly before the buzzer, but again deer in headlights. He didn't know what to do even though we pregamed this. I pointed to him and he froze for a moment then waived his hands in a "safe" motion if he were a baseball umpire. We met at half court and I asked if he was waiving off the basket or just signaling the end of the half. He again froze. The croud was outraged. I then raised my voice and said SIR WAS THE BASKET GOOD OR NOT. WERE YOU WAIVING OFF THE BASKET OR ENDING THE HALF. He finally said it was good. So I told him to signal the good basket. So 20 seconds after the horn the basket was awarded.
I'd like to say it got better from there but it did not. We had multiple times when we had 2 leads and no "C". And multiple times with 2 "T" and no "C".
My question is what do you do? How could I as the "R" done it different.
The coach said to me after the game we need to talk I cant have this at the varsity level. What do you say, when you agree with him?

IMO...and this is just my opinion because I wasn't there...I wouldn't have gone about the discussion at the end of the half in the way you did. Knowing he was clearly confused I would have just gotten the three of you together and huddled like you were trying to make sure you got the call right. At that point you could break and any three of you could tell the scorer to count the basket.

You have those nights sometimes but kind of bad on your scheduler for putting 3 inexperienced guys together. At the same time though I have worked with guys in their 1st varsity game that had the confidence to be the R and guys in their 100th that didn't.

As far as the rotations there probably wasn't a person in the gym that noticed that stuff except the three of you. Chalk it up as learning and he will know what to do next time.

Just out of curiosity, did the coach assign you three to this game or did some association assignor?

It sounds like a bad mix of officials for this game. All you can do really is learn from the experience and hope you have some more experience on the game that meshes.

Peace

Ask the AD for a copy of the tape and give it to the guys as a learning tool......

Somebody has to take control of the crew during the game. As described, the two of you with experience should have gotten your heads together early and agreed to carry the new guy's water. But after the game, talk to the coach and tell him you share his concerns and let him know it will be addressed. And then address it. Make sure your association doesn't drop a guy in a varsity setting never having done 3 man before, and let your assigner know this newbie is not ready for primetime.

Its either that, or have the newb fake an injury so you can close out the second half 2-man! ;)

"No rotations. If you go over as lead, then go back when play reverses."

"Don't spend so much time worrying about where to be that you forget to officiate."

I would never talk to the coach after the game to tell him this. If he insists, refer him to the AD. Refer the AD to the assigner. Get on the phone as soon as you're in the car and call your assigner.

If the AD did the scheduling, let him deal with the coach. If the AD scheduled one of you and that guy brought in the other two, then it is a learning experience. There's no reason a varsity games should have three officials with a total of 27 varsity games of experience. It's really two rookies and a second year guy, experience-wise.

The assigner schedules our officials not the coaches. Also I agree that there are new guys that could jump in and run with the best and then there are those that probably shouldnt be there. We, I tried to encourage him and tell him we've been there not to long ago, but honestly I've never been that bad lol. I admit I didn't have a great game last night either.
But I called my assigner to let him know what happend. He was apprecitive.
I never want to be one of those guys that bash another official (I cant stand when I hear that) but I just think it wasn't fair for him or any of us to be in that spot.

As far as the missed rotations it just sucked do to being no one there to make a call out of bounds on transition and things like that. I know you can hide mistakes like that but it was horrible times to be out of position.

I've been working on court presence and last night wasn't a good one.

But thank you all very much. You all really do help make me a better official.

Three man should be learned in 1) camps, or 2) low level games like Middle School. You should never have a guys first three man game be a Varsity game. I should know, my first three man game was a Varsity game. It did not go well.

Do this today.

This is the hardest thing for guys just starting to do three man. They have all these two man tendencies that they need to relearn cuz the angles are all different. Three man also requires an awareness of where your partners are during a rotation. A new guy will be so overwhelmed with his new responsibilities that he will forget to officiate and thus make bad or no calls at all.

When huddling to count the shot you should have simply said, "the shot was good, go in front of the table and count it". Don't hang the guy out to dry in front of everyone.

It's pretty simple. If you have a bad game, learn and move onto the next one.

You are correct. I guess I was just concerned that he waived off the shot and didn't want to over rule him. But thinking back yes you are correct.

The Land That Time Forgot ...
 

I'm going to guess that less than two, or three, percent of the varsity games in my little corner of Connecticut, are three person games. I would bet my house that zero percent of subvarsity games are three person games. In fact, I would go as far as saying that there are more one person subvarsity games than there are three person subvarsity games.

My first, and only, experience with a three person game was a boys varsity game in a holiday tournament. It could be described as a "big game", which is why three officials were assigned to that game. Previous to that, I had only studied three person mechanics in the manual, never on the floor.

One year, we had a voluntary, preseason, one hour, "on the floor", three person demonstration by our interpreter. Only a couple of dozen officials showed up. This demonstration hasn't been offered since.

For some officials on my local board, their first three person game is a state tournament quarterfinal game. The only exception would be those officials that also work college games, and there aren't too many of those.

Man, thats crazy!! In Wyoming, we've really focused on it, so much so that we do 3-man all the way down to the Middle School level! Now granted, that's our association, most places I traveled to for varsity games have 2 man on the JV games, but there are zero varsity games in this state scheduled as a 2 man crew.

In my opinion...this falls directly on the two officials with experience. If one of you sees there are two T officials the experienced official at trail needs to slide down and become C. If they SHOULD be the trail, trust the lead to close down on the lane and help you cover. There will be very few in the gym that knows the three of you are out of position.

As far as the last shot of the half. If you knew it was clearly release before the buzzer, why didn't you just count the basket yourself and have another teaching moment during the half.

Now that said, with everything going on I would imagine you had a lot running through your head and he probably took you "out of your game". Learn from it, teach as much as you can during dead balls and move on.

Now ??? Where's My Black Belt ???
 

.. and that's why Connecticut is known as ...

http://ts4.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.46230...13999&pid=15.1

Here we don't do a whole lot of three man until the playoffs. One tournament in a three board area (which I am aware of) does 3-man for the finals. Section playoff Quarterfinals onward are conducted in 3-man.I like the idea of if you expect officials to learn and be competent in 3-man exposes them to it at the lower levels, that way it won't be a shock to the system when they have to do it at the varsity level.

Billy,

About 10 years ago, our association decided to assign all games as 3 person crews. This includes middle and sub-varsity games. The intent was to shorten the training curve. Works well down here.

Where's My Buggy Whip ???
 

Varsity coaches, especially those that win state championships with defensively oriented teams, and carry, with that, a lot in influence in the Connecticut High School Coaches Association (a strong organization here in Connecticut), don't want three officials. The Coaches Association has influence over our state high school athletics governing body, so the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC), the state governing body, hasn't pushed the three person issue. At levels lower than that, athletic directors, and principals, don't want to pay for the extra officials for subvarsity, and middle school, games.

Until winning, defensively oriented, influential, varsity coaches change their mind, retire, or get hit by a school bus, we won't have three person games in Connecticut.

It happens
 

It happens and I learned 3-man in camp but my first experience was horrific and a good friend told me that no official is perfect and if we watch the tape regardless of 2-man or 3-man we all could write a book of things that we could've done better.

That is almost laughable. Even here in our agricultural state with smaller athletic budgets, most of the coaches were sick of seeing fouls not being called (and they impacted the results of the game) because their seat on the bench was the same look as the "C." Often times they would watch tape and/or look at our correct positioning and see why plays weren't guessed on and called fouls or vice-versa where a foul was called because the official guessed when it was a legal play. I am glad we have made headways in this the last 5-10 years to where even many of our smaller schools have gond to 3-whistle coverage.

Crew dynamics are important.

It's important to have a very strong official on every game -- someone you can point at who you know will handle things when "it" hits the fan.

The second official should be at least solid enough to work his primary and get his calls right as close to 100% of the time as possible.

Unfortunately, it sounds as though your crew had 3 U2s.

I've been there back when I was just learning how to work 3-person years ago. Sometimes the best thing you can do as an individual is decide that if nobody else is going to step up, it might as well be you. Show confidence even if you don't have it and do your best.

But your assigner isn't doing you any favors.

Curious...how did you "sell" this to the middle schools and high schools for sub -varsity and get them to agree to pay for a third official?

We've done it for sub varsity at the big schools. The sell comes with the better quality officials in the varsity contests since you don't have guys learning 3-man in varsity games.

It's Not All About Money ...
 

Money is a only a very small part of the two, or three, person debate here in my little corner of Connecticut.

The coaches that win conference, league, and state titles are, for the most part, very defensively oriented coaches. Because they win, they carry a lot of power in the Coaches Association, and thus, the State governing body. These guys like to press, and trap, and fight through screens, and play man to man, etc. They figure that with an extra official out on the court, more fouls will be called, more players will be in foul trouble, more opponents will be be shooting free throws, etc., putting them, and their defensive style, at a disadvantage.

Coaches down in the southeastern corner of the state have "seen the light", and have encouraged their leagues, and conferences, to use three man crews for "big" varsity games.

But here in my little corner of the state, and in a few other parts of the state, coaches just don't want a third man, or woman, on court.

"My crew included myself (official of 5 years but with only a dozen varsity games), a 7 year veteran with only 20 varsity game experience, and a first time varsity official with no varsity or three man game experience."

Bad, bad idea from the assignor. He may to have realizes that this was going to be a tough game…..abut you MUST have at least 1 strong veteran in ANY varsity game, Crazy things happen, and someone need to experience to deal calmly with it.

Yes we did correct the rotations that were wrong except for the ones that they wouldn't look at me and didn't realize they missed it and the ball went oob on the sideline where there was no one at, and things like that. And yes my mind was everywhere except for officiating my game. That was my biggest fault.

...took a pay cut....so that we could "sell" 3-Whistle.

At first some of us were hesitant...but, man o man...has this been a godsend.

We do ALL High School games 3-Whistle...and some M.S. games for training.

I can't imagine doing 2 person all year and then expect to be proficient in 3 person when the "big game" or "playoffs" come around.

We're almost the exact same. For us, varsity was mandated at the state level, so nothing we had to do, as far as sub varsity/middle school, we're lucky enough to have two AD's in our region that somewhat progressive in that they realize the importance of that 3rd official, and basically made a statement in support of it. Initially we also took a pay cut, but after a year or two, the president of our association set up a meeting to discuss how much 3 have helped, and the AD's agreed to buck up for the 3rd.