inconsistent
 

1st year official and I need some advice. I seem to be very inconsistent from one game to the next. I have a good game where I feel I'm in position and see the floor and the players real well and that I make good calls. Then, the next game comes along and I feel uptight and I feel out of position and I feel like I have a poor game. I have the same routine before each game but I can't figure out this up and down pattern. Any help?

You're a first year? Don't worry about it. Consistency comes with experience and time. Just work on patient whistles and getting what you need to when you see it.

Possibly it's not as bad as you think, but it's just your comfort level varies. Based on a number of factors, some games are dramatically more difficult to call than others.

And sometimes, the first half and second half of a game can be as different as night and day.

Last week, I had a game (6th grade boys) where the first half went relative smoothly and the home team was up 3 at the half.

The third quarter comes and home opens with an 8-0 run. At that point, both teams begin to hack the heck out of each other and my partner and I find ourselves suddenly having to tighten up on what we call.

At the end of the third period, for good measure, a visiting player throws the ball at me instead of to me, and he hits me with the ball. That made it easy for me to serve tea for two.

As a new official, you will have your days where you may feel you had a great game to feeling like very little went right in the next game. When this happens to me, I try to figure out if there was anything I could have done better or differently. If not, than chances are I won't dwell on it too much (why kick myself for what I can't control?). If there is something I truly think I could have handled differently, I make a note in my journal about what I should work on improving in my next game.

Since you're knew you have to remember you're learning something every game and you're always being put in unfamiliar situations. When that happens you start thinking. When you start thinking - instead of just seeing, processing and reacting - you feel uncomfortable. Once you have a large enough catalog of situations in your head the on again, off again feelings won't happen quite as often.