Crash…no whistle

[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

Originally Posted by BayStateRef

Unfortunately, the guiding principal here is not the rule book, but what you call that idiotic philosophy. Those assignors decide who works for them and if you don't adhere to their view, you won't be working any games.

I had a play at a college tryout camp a few years ago. The ball is knocked away from the dribbler in the front court near the top of the key, when B2 and A2, from equally advantageous positions, dive for the ball and make severe contact -- so much that one player has to leave the game with a concussion.

From the C, I saw the whole play and make no call because neither player did anything illegal. As the trainers are attending to the injuries, the clinician asked why I passed on the foul and I told him. He said that he thought I was too close to the play and that the trail needed to "get the call" from across the court.

The trail asked who should the foul be on, since he saw the play the same way I did. The clinician asked if we knew the foul count. Yes, it was 6-3. Then call it on the team with three fouls, he said. Another clinician made the same point: there HAD to be a foul call on a play where a player suffers a concussion because of an injury with an opposing player. No call was not acceptable. He did not care on which team the foul was called.

It IS an idiotic philosophy and your experience just proved it.

The second point your experience shows is the concept of knowing the foul count. Yes, we should know the foul count, but not to call a foul with the lower foul count or appeasing a coach who thinks he is getting "homered". You don't know how many coaches have accused me and my parrtner(s) that we are homering him on his own home court when the foul totals are to his advantage; I even had the HC of the Home team make that comment on the first foul of the game in a women's college game.

I have attended camps and have been a clinician at camps. The mindset of some people in charge of officiating is frightening.

I know that when one attends a camp, one is really supposed to keep one's mouth shut, nod yes, and do what your told, but I would have politely asked why a foul should have been called when no foul occured. I could not have let that clinician's philosophy go unchallenged. Of course at my age (63) I am in my 44th year of officiating and officiated women's college for 34 years, which allows me the luxuary of being curmudgeonly old cuss, .

MTD, SR