I'm confused

[refnrev]

Had two situations last night that I think were wrong, but want to double check.
1. Game 1 of 1st match. I'm R and whistle for teams to take the court. U has his wheel and checks the two teams lineups. He is still holding the ball. He checks receving team then serving team. He walks over to coaches and says something. They both shake their heads. He walks over and tells me we have an illegal alignment on S team and it is signaled and point awarded to R team and ball given to opponents for serve. How can you have illegal alignment when you're checking the teams before the start of the game. I thought the whole point was to make sure you have the right players on the court. Doesn't IA have to occur at the moment of serve?

2. During game 2 of second match. I'm U. Nice long volley between two teams. Ball drops on home side of the court. No whistle. Coaches look at me and I look at R. He calls me over and asks, "Did you have an 'in the net' on home?" I just look at him and shake my head no. There was no one close to the net and I certainly didn't blow a whistle. He calls for a replay. Shouldn't it have been a point for home? How could you have a replay when the play ended with no violation or foul?

I know I'm a little rusty because of the break between HS and MS and have done a lot of basketball in between, but am I just full of prunes on these or were both of these calls wrong?

[FMadera]

Originally Posted by refnrev

Had two situations last night that I think were wrong, but want to double check.
1. Game 1 of 1st match. I'm R and whistle for teams to take the court. U has his wheel and checks the two teams lineups. He is still holding the ball. He checks receving team then serving team. He walks over to coaches and says something. They both shake their heads. He walks over and tells me we have an illegal alignment on S team and it is signaled and point awarded to R team and ball given to opponents for serve. How can you have illegal alignment when you're checking the teams before the start of the game. I thought the whole point was to make sure you have the right players on the court. Doesn't IA have to occur at the moment of serve?

Yep, that one got FUBAR'ed pretty good. Illegal alignment occurs at the moment a serve is legally contacted.

2. During game 2 of second match. I'm U. Nice long volley between two teams. Ball drops on home side of the court. No whistle. Coaches look at me and I look at R. He calls me over and asks, "Did you have an 'in the net' on home?" I just look at him and shake my head no. There was no one close to the net and I certainly didn't blow a whistle. He calls for a replay. Shouldn't it have been a point for home? How could you have a replay when the play ended with no violation or foul?

Ah, the "this might have happened, or it might not have, so let's be 'fair' and replay it" replay. Not a big fan of that, as there's no justification for it, and it's just a copout.

Ball is down. No certain net, then no net.

I know I'm a little rusty because of the break between HS and MS and have done a lot of basketball in between, but am I just full of prunes on these or were both of these calls wrong?

Sounds like you need to go with your instincts and nurture your partner a little more next time.

[MCBear]

Felix was a whole lot nicer than I was when I initially saw your post, rev! I had put together a pithy reply taking both you and your partner to task when my computer decided to take a data dump!!!!

Your partner totally blew it...as Felix indicated and as you thought, IA cannot occur until the ball is contacted for serve. If there is a problem on the court when checking the line-ups, we fix it (if we can) and play. The only way that there would be a Loss Of Rally assessed to the serving team before the first serve is if the coach submitted an inaccurate line-up and one of the numbers on the line-up sheet isn't on the court AND no one on the bench is wearing it either. In that instance, since there is a non-existent number listed on the line-up sheet, we change both the line-up sheet and the scoresheet followed by assessing a penalty LOR against the serving team for submitting an inaccurate lineup.

However, if the above scenario was not the case and players were simply in the wrong places - put them in the correct order and then we play! Always remember that as the Referee, you have the final authority over everything that transpires during your match. You have the authority to over-rule your partner if it is absolutely necessary (and in this situation, you should have over-ruled him!).

In Situation 2, as Felix indicated, your partner copped out. There is no justification for calling a replay - you didn't have a net on the home team; he evidently didn't have enough information to be able to call a net on the home team himself (which would have given the point to the visitor), plus...the ball landed on the home team's court which should have been a point for the visitor. So, any way you look at it, your partner made a major error and took a point away from the visitor that should have been awarded.

Time to spray a little WD-40 in the rusty cogs of the volleyball computer that resides between the ears. A check-up from the neck-up will avoid such errors in the future.

[refnrev]

Sounds like you need to go with your instincts and nurture your partner a little more next time.[/QUOTE]
__________________________________________________

Actually, nurture might not be the best word. I really wasn't confused when I posted, I was just mad -- because I knew I was right -- and because I do 3 sports and have worked hard to get a good reputation in all 3 and am new to the area and and am having to prove my worth when I was becoming a "go to guy" in VB where I lived before.
This year, in VB especially, I seem to have been partnered lately with guys (and they are men) who are just there just to get a check.... don't watch the right places, don't mentally stay in the game, don't know the rules... and it makes us BOTH look bad.
I have enough pride and a strong enough work ethic that I want to do well every time out and I want people to earn their checks when on the field or court. As for "nurturing" ... the partner in question isn't going to listen. It's like we say on the BB forum, some nights you just have to get in, get it done, and get out." OK ... I've vented enough for VB. Now I need to go blow some steam with the BB gang.

[MCBear]

I was working a women's college tri-match last fall. I was the R1 on the first and last match because I knew who my partner was and he tends to be a little sloppy and inconsistent. We were in the first match and it was in the 4th game. The home team was on my left and the visitor was on my right.

We have gone through 8 loss of rallies so that the home team had their 5th server in right back and the visitor had their 4th server in right back. My partner comes across and tells me that the visitor is out of rotation. I look at where the players are on the court and they are exactly where they are supposed to be from where they started the game. He insists that they are in the wrong positions. I ask to see the line-up sheet and the team is correct. He had also brought the scoresheet over, so I look at it and discover that the scorekeeper had entered the visitor's lineup from GAME ONE when they were on the opposite court and serving first! I couldn't believe that my partner had not been notified by the scorekeeper about being out of rotation when they contacted their first serve.

That wasn't the worst thing to happen though. In the third and final match of the day, both teams split the first four games so we have to play a 5th and deciding game. Visitor wins the coin toss and will serve from my left. First serve, net serve, loss of rally point to home team. Home serves out of bounds, loss of rally point to visitor. Visitor serves and loses rally to home team. Home team serves and net serves, loss of rally to visitor. Visitor serves and my partner blows his whistle indicating a wrong server for the visiting team. I am confused because they are in their third service rotation and everything looks correct to me. Come to find out, when he checked the line-ups on the court at the beginning of the game, the visitor was in the wrong order to start - neither he nor the scorekeeper caught that they were out of rotation. I was ready to kill them both!!!! So, we had to put them in the correct order (they had to rotate one position so that they were where they were actually supposed to be), award a loss of rally to the home team and go one from there.

The reason I was ready to kill both my partner and the scorekeeper is that it should never gotten into the third rotation before someone noticed that it was a wrong server. Plus, my partner should NEVER have let them serve out of rotation in the first place. That is the whole purpose of having the R2 (college, Umpire in NFHS) check the line-ups before the start of each game - so that the players start in the correct position on the court.

Like you, rev, I have worked with partners who are only there to get the check. In that case, I take over and will not let the klutz undermine the integrity of the game. My bottom line is always that we get the call right. It is one thing when my partner doesn't know how to call ball-handling, but it is a whole different kettle of fish when he doesn't know the rules of the game and is making incorrect calls based on that. The players deserve better than that.

Good luck getting yourself re-established in your new area. I had to go through that when I moved out here to California from Ohio in 1993.

[FMadera]

Originally Posted by refnrev

I really wasn't confused when I posted, I was just mad -- because I knew I was right

I can understand giving in if you're the umpire, and the referee clearly makes a wrong call. But when you're the referee, and your umpire makes a clearly wrong call, it's up to you to make sure the call is right. You have the final say as referee, and allowing a clearly wrong rule interpretation ultimately is on you.

When you are 100% (not 99%) sure your partner is wrong, and you're on the stand, get it right, and don't worry about how your partner feels about it. It can be done professionally without looking like you are showing your partner up, but your job is to fairly administer the match, and if you're going to sit back and allow someone who is clearly wrong administer an incorrect penalty, then that's just as much on you as it is on him.

Sorry for the tough words. Believe me, I've been told much worse over the years. You'll hopefully learn from this and decide to be more confident and assertive in the future.

[refnrev]

No offense taken, but what threw me at the beginning was when I saw him talking to both coaches and both coaches nodding their heads in agreement. Then he comes over and tells me IA. Since it was my first game after an extended break, I thought maybe I'm missing something here... so at the actual point of the mistake I was just taken a back for a minute. A few serves later and all the rest of the game and all the drive home, I realized I'd booted it was ticked at him AND ME because I realized it was wrong. For what it's worth, this is the same guy who tossed a coach in a game the first time she stomped her foot in disagreement of a call. No words from the coach, just a stomp from the bench. No yellow, no red.... just a you're outta here! But you are right -- as R I was responsible for what happened and I booted it. But I own that rule now and it won't happen again!

[MCBear]

You have finally learned what most of us already know from experience - coaches DO NOT know the rules of the game. In your instance, if either coach had known what the heck was going on, they would not have allowed your partner to give such a blatantly wrong interpretation to a rule to start a match. Unless they are real chowderheads, I bet that they know the correct rule now.

Sounds to me like your partner doesn't really know the game of volleyball and doesn't want to take the time to learn about it. Unfortunately, this type of official gets hired because there is such a dire need for officials to do the sport. We can only hope that he creates enough problems for himself & the schools for whom he refs that he either decides to step up and learn what the game is about or he decides to let those who know the game of volleyball do it and he will sit in the stands yelling about the rules that he doesn't know.

Hang in there, rev! As long as you keep studying and learning and finding credible partners to work with, you will be OK.