Never seen before
 

Tonight, I was LJ1 and saw a play that I have honestly never seen before at any level. The ball is being played on my side of the court. The ball is passed to the setter, the ball is set to a back-row hitter who is just behind the 3 meter line, more or less right in front of me. The hitter attacks the ball.

So far, nothing unusual.

However, as the back-row player is attacking the ball, the front-row player in front of him is jumping to FAKE the attack. When the back-row player contacts the ball, the ball then glances off the forearm of the faking front-row player.

There is no whistle from the R1 and no signal from the R2. The R1 is a great official. To make matters worse, it was match point. (It was 25-10, so it didn't affect the game, but still.) We talked about it after the match. R1 had moved his eyes to the other side of the net, and the R2 was focused on the blocking action at the net. I only saw it because both players were in my direct line of sight for the whole play.

Is there ANY way that I can or should indicate this fault to one of the referees? I'm 99% sure that the answer is no, but I feel like this is important enough to warrant as much as input as the referees can get.

No. Four hits isn't a line judge call.

Obviously :)

And I knew that would be the answer I would get. But it does seem like there should be some mechanism to provide important information to the referees. I don't line judge a lot in HS, except during the post-season. But in my limited career, this is the second time that I've seen a non-judgment fault but been unable to help the referees.

Just seems like a flaw to me. You've got 4 very good experienced officials out there. Wouldn't you want to get that info? I know I would if I were R1.

If your R1 calls you over and asks you for information, your certainly allowed to answer whatever question is posed to you. But that wasn't really what you asked. You wouldn't give info on double contacts, right?

Absolutely. But if the R1 doesn't realize that I have the answer to an important question, s/he has no way to get that info. That seems like a hole in the system to me.

Absolutely not. But that's usually a judgment call. I'm talking non-judgment.

Touches and in/out are judgment too. Most of what we call is judgment.

Another example: If you see a player in the antenna, that's not your call to signal. But if your R1 calls you over to ask what happened, you are free to then say what you saw. The R1 can then use that information to make a final decision, you just can't signal it since it's not in your duties.

I'm going to disagree with this. In/out is not judgment. It's in or it's out. It touched the line or it didn't. Touches are not judgment. The ball was touched or it was not. We might miss it, but we never say "the ball hit the line but not enough to call it in".

Doubles are judgment, because if it weren't, EVERY single overhand two-handed set would be a double. The ball NEVER touches both hands at the exact same nanosecond. We're allowed to decide if it was "close enough" to be legal. We're not allowed to decide if a ball was "touched enough" to be called a touch.

You have to understand that the vast majority of my officiating experience is with basketball. A basketball crew is much more of a team than a volleyball crew. In basketball, if my partner has important information s/he is expected to bring it to me. (Or sometimes even to blow the whistle right in front of me!) It doesn't matter if it was his/her primary responsibility or not. As a volleyball R1, if I walked off the court and my R2 or LJ told me in the locker room that he knew the game-ending point should've been four contacts, I'd be pissed.

I brought this scenario to another excellent official that I respect a lot. He said pretty much the same thing as you did. However, he said that maybe I could've put 4 fingers down by my leg, while holding the flag in my other hand to try to get the R1 to call me over. I doubt this will ever happen to me again, but if it does, I will try to remember to do this.

I'm curious. If you are a line judge watching your antenna and your line, how do you see a ball graze a forearm above the net in the middle of the court?

Before I reply, is this a serious question because you really don't know what a line judge would be looking at? Or is this a sarcastic comment to imply that I should not have been looking at a ball being played at the net?

If that's all you think a line judge should focus on, I'm going to guess you're missing a lot of touches off the block when you line judge.

R2 and Line Judge are not the same. You shouldn't act as if they are, or that they have the responsibilities. And no, I don't have anything at all against line judges; I'm a certified line judge, and when I line judge, it's hard to get out of "referee mode," but I have to keep within the confines of what my responsibilities are for that match.

If your R2 didn't give you this information, by all means, be upset. The line judge simply does not offer this information unsolicited. That doesn't mean you can't answer the question if asked. But you wouldn't offer up a net call either, even if you saw it.

Again, if the R1 calls you over and asks what happen, you can sing like a bird. But it is not the job of the line judge to insist on it, as it wouldn't be the job of your scorer in basketball to tell you about a foul or double dribble.

You can continue to disagree, and that's fine. You asked, I'm giving you an answer based on experience. Up to you what to do with it.

Felix, I'm not disagreeing with your answer. As I said in my very first post, I was 99% sure that's what the answer would be. What I am saying is that I feel like there should be some mechanism to get critical, non-judgment information to a referee to avoid a similar situation.

There's SO much responsibility on the R1 to call so much of the court. It just feels like we're limiting ourselves unnecessarily by not providing a way for the R1 to get information.

I just thought of this analogy. (So it might not be a very good one, but here goes.) In the Saints/Rams NFC Conference Championship game, near the end of regulation, when an OBVIOUS defensive pass interference foul was not called on the field. But there was nothing to do about it because PI is not reviewable by rule. There was an obvious call to be made, but there was no mechanism that allowed the officials to access the information to correct the call.

My play is exactly the same. There's an obvious call to be made, somebody HAS the necessary information, but the system doesn't allow the official to access the information.

Almost everybody realized almost right away that the NFL situation was ridiculous. Yet, we're fine with it in my situation. It just seems like there could be some fine-tuning.

I don't even know what the fine-tuning would be. I just hate the idea of getting to the locker room and realizing I missed a call when somebody on my crew could've saved me.

Perhaps the best takeaway here is include that in your prematch discussion, how to convey information in an unorthodox situation. I include, for example, as R2, how to tell my R1, "Look, I'm pretty sure there was a touch, but I'm not wanting to go alone on this, so if you have the same feeling, call touch, and I'll deal with the coaches."

Maybe if you can include these questions/answers in your prematch, it might help to lower the probability of something like this happening in your match in the future. Good lesson for everyone.

Scrapper,

At the top levels of our game, instant replay challenge would have allowed the officiating team to get your situation right, like the NFL is trying to do. At levels where I call, high school volleyball and baseball participants are just going to have to live with the hopefully rare bad call by an official.

your comparison to the Rams/Saints missed call, would be more like an assistant official, the chain gang in football, with specific and limited responsibilities to support the on field officiating team offering an opinion to the back judge that missed the PI call rather than a basketball official reaching outside of his area to get a call.

I don't disagree with the idea of 'fine-tuning'. But just like everything else, the devil is in the details. Speaking specifically NFHS and NCAA, the R1 and R2 are assumed to be trained and paid officials. Line judges may or may not be trained and/or paid, so the level of expertise can vary widely and they are not held to the same standard as R1 and R2.

There are times when the line the line judge(s) is vastly more experienced than the R1 or R2 and there are times when the line judge has absolutely no training in volleyball whatsoever. My guess is that the rules-makers limit the line judge responsibilities due to the lack of expected or required training. If all line judges were required to have a certain level of certification then, perhaps their scope of responsibilities could be expanded.

Great point, Felix. I've been LJ where I've had a really good pre-game, and when I've had a not-so-good pre-game. Adding "unorthodox situations" to the pre-game as an R1 is really good advice.

Another excellent point. Earlier in the thread, I said something like "you've got four very good officials out there. . ." and even at the time I typed it, I knew that was not always the case. (Is it always true in college matches? Probably not, I guess.) It happened to be true in the play that was originally talking about, but is an over-generalization for most of the time.

No, even though you know the call is missed there is nothing that can be done to receive your input on this call unless you are asked for the input. Now, if the team that lost the point questions the call and the R1 asks you to provide input as to what you witnessed, then you can provide the input. Even then I think providing that input opens a huge can of worms though for both the R1 and the LJ. It is obviously admitting a missed call by the R1, which could lead to requests to review basic calls in the future by the same teams. Additionally, even though you were absolutely correct in your watching the contact, you could be accused of officiating beyond your duties as a LJ.

On this the best thing to do is keep your mouth shut unless asked and understand that missed calls happen.


This does remind me of a situation I had years ago. Varsity tourney on the final weekend before the state playoffs. Its the silver bracket semi-final and there is an obvious missed 4 hits call. (By obvious I mean 3 clear hits before the ball was close to the net and the 4th sending it over. I'm the R2 and immediately put 4 fingers across my chest. Nothing happens. Play continues and the offended team coach is offended and is screaming from the bench. Finally their team loses the point and coach is ballastic on the bench. Our association makes it clear the R2 never crosses to talk to the R1 unless the R1 beacons the R2 across. Screw that, I'm going across to let the R1 know that was a clear 4 hits. (This somewhat calms the coach down). I tell him we had a clear four hits and am able to tell him exactly what part of the court they were on. (Pass backward, pass to the 10 foot, pass to the setter at the 10 foot, and a hit from the 10 foot over the net). His response was that we only had three hits. After wiping the look of shock off my face I turn around trying to figure out how I will sell the call to the now more irate coach. As I am walking back I see all three players working the scorers table, plus both lines judges holding up four fingers. I end up having to yellow card the coach.

Move on to the next set and there is a ball that hits about a foot in front of the yellow carded coaches player and she hits it after the bounce. I, as well as both line judges, are signally in. Play continues. Yellow carded coaches team ends up winning the point. As I am doing a sub for the other team yellow carded coach asks to talk to me. "I want you to give the point to the other team, that ball was clearly down." I then had to go explain to the R1 why this call was being over ruled.

After the match I immediately walk away to not lose my cool with this guy on the court. He walks into the officials room and says something about how rough a match that was. It took every ounce of power in me not to start ripping into the incompetent fool. I think I still have a hole in my tongue from biting it so hard. I spent an hour writing and email to my assigner about that match. Worst match I've ever had to deal with from a partner perspective.

I guess we can make another thread about this if we wanted, but it's always good to know the importance of a good prematch.

If, as R1, your prematch with your R2 consists of "watch the net, watch the center line...," you could not have just had a worse prematch. Assume your professional partner knows the bare minimum about their job.

Your prematch should cover as many of the things that could get you in trouble as is reasonable to cover, and how to handle those things. As R2, ask questions your R2 didn't cover, talk about how you communicate certain things, go over, "If I do this, it means this, you should probably do this."

With your line judges, talk about how you want things communicated from them, how you will communicate with them, etc.

R2, talk to your scorers. They don't know what you want/need if you don't tell them, and you had better make sure you know what THEY need as well. Your job is to give them the info the way they need it, not for them to take it how you give it.

Et cetera. :)