Summer Leagues - HS
 

Starting up summer leagues here and I've already given 3 T's in about 6 games. 2 coaches and 1 player. I don't know about everyone else but my tolerance for griping during summer league is much less. T's as far as I know aren't reported to anyone and no one is punished. Do you guys give more during summer league? We're already paid less and the gyms are hot. Why put up with stuff too?

Don't put up with much crap in any offseason leagues or scrimmages. Not paid enough to put up with it. If I take heat from an assigner/league director for not tolerating crap, I'll simply stop working those games.

Yep, more so to coaches since many of them aren't really coaches and don't tend to have sense.

I gave out only 2 Ts this year during 3 + months of HS ball. I'll only work about 3 weekends of summer ball, but on average give out 4-6 Ts for various reasons.

I just don't have much tolerance or desire to put up with any BS during a summer league game where all I'm getting paid is $25.

I gave one to a coach the other night. Summer is a really good time to practice such things. Nice and easy. No emotion. Stay professional and move on. The rest of the game was smoover n buttah.

I had 5 in the 2nd half of a game last weekend. That was more than I called the entire HS season.

HS spring leagues are over and we've just started summer leagues. So far, thankfully, we've had no discipline problems.

Question:
Does a summer league scrimmage or league help you or those doing them become better officials?
If not, boycott.
Seriously.
I'm doing that tomorrow and Sunday. And encouraging others as well.
Just got email from local prominent coach: "Need bodies for tomorrow...32 teams coming...blah, blah, blah...all games will be 2-person games only...try to take 8 games if possible..."blah, blah, blah..."
Note: "...bodies..." That's what he considers us.
It's time for dedicated officals to differentiate between "they need me" and "I need this opportunity to get better."
I'm sick of trying to break officials of habits during the school season of shortcut habits they pick up doing eight games a day every weekend during the summer season.
Stop it.
If you have to do things to "conserve energy" in order to make it through the day, you've prostituted yourself.
Seriously.
Stop it.
Really.
Don't do that.

Get it? Got it? Good.

So, during those 3+ months, you only reffed one quarter? :p

I love this! Well said! Summer is definitely a great time to work on some things. It's also a great time to become a bit lazy and digress into bad habits. Not ever a good thing...especially the summer when one of the POEs is "Use NFHS mechanics".

I've said it before, but the only games I work during the summer are camp games or games assigned (and required to be worked) by an actual assignor of games in the regular season.

Since I moved, I don't have the latter, so I only work camp games. But I once worked for someone that assigned small college and required a certain number of summer youth games to be worked. I worked the minimum required. The basketball was bad, coaches were worse, and there was no benefit to me working them.

Amen, Brother...

Where are you living now?

You lost me here.

Freddy - GREAT POST !!!!

Unfortunately that is where our avocation has gone......people even on this site
will do 8 games a day on weekends and walk with $450 for a weekend. They aren't switching on fouls, walking up the court and not using proper mechanics....I watched a hs game this past year where two guys that are prostitutes on weekend did a hs game together. When the lead would call a foul, the trail would report the foul, this way they never switched...... these are the same guys that are complaining about everything in our meetings....I'm almost afraid to say that hs basketball is filled with "rec" referees !!!!

A couple things need to be said here.

First of all summer games are not played the say way that a regular season game is played (at least not here). Games are running clock games. They are often do not keep track of individual fouls, so we never report the number of the fouler. In many case do not shoot the actual FTs that are normally awarded or We often have several courts right next to each other and teams play back to back games without much of a break. No sure what happens we are going to use when if you delay the game during a running clock situation, the participants get very upset. Games take about an hour in most cases as most leagues have either a 20 or 18 minute running clock halves. So how in the hell are you going to do all the regular mechanics in that environment? You totally lost me with your last little statements.

Also if someone is assigned 8 games, is that not on the assignor? I have worked multiple games during the summer already where games were literally all day from the morning to around 10:00pm and I have never seen anyone assigned 8 straight games. I would think because the assignor wants to use a lot of people and in some cases I did not work more than 4 games at a time, at a particular site.

The only reason I do them is to see more plays. I do not even use regular mechanics for signals.

Peace

It's a two-way street in some areas. Since I've been back home (NY/NJ) I rarely see people work more than two games in a row because there are more than enough officials and we get paid fairly well ($40-50...$60 in some adult leagues). When I was in GA in the late '90s I knew guys who purposely took 6-8 games in a row - both stop- and running-time - because we were only paid $10-15/game. Heck, I took 4 stop-time games in a row a few times but that was truly to work on stuff.

I think some are making this more complicated than it really is. As stated above, most of these are not "real games," so it is not really practical to treat them as such. If you think working these games will be more of a negative (causing bad habits, etc.) than the money it brings in is worth, then by all means, don't do them. Or you can do what I do. Consider it to be the opportunity to earn 20 bucks an hour for exercising and seeing some kids play ball, things which I often do for free.

There's nothing wrong with working these games for money. I can't imagine any other reason for working most of this crap.

Most people with any kind of ability can use the right mechanics when the real games start.

Agreed...I used to do a lot of these games - back when we used the money for our summer vacation trips. Don't need that money anymore now that I make the big bucks, so I don't work any of these tournaments. They were rarely any fun, and I rarely "learned" anything from them. For me, those summer tournaments were simply a way to earn extra spending money.

Agreed I can turn on/off the summer mechanics pretty quickly when I need to. Doing non-camp summer league stuff for me is generally just a way to get some extra spending money. Maybe I'll work a different rules set here or there to make things interesting, but for the most part I'm doing these for spending summer money.

Now why I 100% subscribe to the summer mechanics philosophy (not always switching etc..) I will give 100% effort when it regards to hustle, consistency, bench decorum etc..but I'm not getting paid like a regular season game and therefore don't see the need to switch on every foul etc...

Boys HS Var Summer League game last night. Nasty storms come through. Heavy rain and wind and massive lightning. 9.7 seconds left in first half and CRACK, the lights go out.....came back on 15 minutes later thankfully,

This was game two of a three game set with a running clock. Thankfully, we didn't get too far behind.

I'm reffing a summer leagues games now and don't mind it all.
On Thursdays I do a 4 game set of youth (fairly competitive skill level) rising 6th and 7th graders. Pays $20 per game.
Then on Sundays I do a 4 game set of adult wreck league games--actually two of these teams are co-ed both comprised of 3 women players of the 7 players on the teams. Pays $22 per game.
All games are 20 min. running clock, 1 t/o per half.

My partners are experienced refs--some whom I've worked with in the past, sometimes new refs.

We use normal NF mechanics---before games we speak briefly and tell each other/agree that "hey let's not let out mechanics erode in these games".

Because there is no "head coach" per se in the "adult league" games, we often must interact directly with players who question our calls--and hey this is out of respect because they are adults also. We are in the 3rd week and have given out 3 or 4 whacks but in the first 2 weeks. Actually one of the female players cursed at a travelling call--ostensibly an experience player she was--but she did shuffle those feet. Me and partner laughed over her cursing at us after the game though, he asked me "man could you believe she cursed at me dude?!" Humerous. You've got to just show those players who the boss is.