You big dummy...
 

Last Saturday I was calling 13-14 year old boys. Great game...athletic teams...very close. I was T, A1 drives the sideline then turns toward the hoop on the drive. As he is gathering the ball for a lay-up B1 reaches in. I see what looks like B1's arm across A1's arm and as I am stepping in I blow my whistle (a split second before my partner blows his). I am raising my fist but my new angle clearly shows B1 has all ball. My partner is giving the jump ball sign and now I know it is not a foul so I yell "Jump" (but remember, my fist is up...didn't think fast enough to open the hand).

So now, I have a confused coach who thinks he should be getting free-throws and a confused partner who is wondering what is going on. To his credit he immediately comes to me and asks if I had a foul first. I explain to him what happened but I don't think he believed me.

I was kicking myself for making such a stupid mistake. Coach was a little "chippy" for a while but I let him go because we were close to halftime and I figured I deserved it. I explained at halftime and suggested we move on and he obliged.

Lesson learned (again)...a patient whistle is your friend.

Not that I would T the coach but I wouldn't let him go at me. Go to him at that moment, tell him what happened and move on ("Coach, I had a jump ball as well, I just came out with the wrong signal."). Done. He'll still complain but at least it's out there.

It wasn't long...a little more than 3 minutes on a running game clock...and he wasn't that bad. Besides, this guy has been coaching since well before my break (absolutely loves working with young players) and rarely says anything and when he does he is quick to shut it down if you let him know he is acting out of character. Given the way it looked I figured it was a just pentence. :p

Better lesson than a patient whistle is to only call what you can see and not what you can't. Don't guess!

If an official doesn't have an angle from which he can see the defender's hands, that official needs to move to adjust his positioning.

3 minutes of game clock is way too long to be complaining about a call. JMF has good advice here.

Advice taken. Keep in mind however that since the clock did not stop (running clock only stops for time outs and all whistles in the last minute of the game) for the rest of the first half we are only talking about 3 minutes of real time.

And then there is that :mad: :(

Yet another thing I have not done since my first season.

An Alternative ...
 

Not bad. How about, "Coach. My partner and I got together and discussed it. He saw my foul, but he was 100% sure that the jump ball came before the foul".

I had a Lead who gave a directional signal, but no color, on a pass that he didn't see was tipped by B2. We were right in front of B's bench, so I just came up to him and said, "You pointed the wrong way". :)