Teamwork between partners

[BigToe]

I have had similar situations that Bob has run into. Unfortuantely, in my area of Illinois, we don't really have assignors. ADs schedule their own officials. In most cases, I don't know who I am working with until we both show up to the game site. Since I am not a certified official, I cannot evaluate other officials.

I have been officiating volleyball for 5 years now and I have really struggled this year working with partners that don't know the rules well or don't pay attention. As the referee, I tend to make most of the calls in these situations (center line, net, etc.) because I know my partner either doesn't know a violation has happened or is not paying attention. My problem comes when I am the umpire. Ball handling calls are just not being called, the line calls are bad (we don't use line judges), etc. The coaches are on me and don't feel I can really do anything because those are not my calls. I indicate to my partner but I am ignored. I have received some bad ratings by coaches when in my opinion, as the umpire, I can't make the calls they want called but I have been knocked anyway.