What's the umpire watching?
 

In all of the descriptions I have seen of the umpire's responsibility during a rally, watching for back row attackers is always on that list. I know he whistles on a net violation or center line violation. But what about a back row attacker? Or does he merely signal this somehow to the R?

The primary responsibility of the U during play is alignment of the recieve team, the net & centerline. They can also blow the whistle for something that is clearly out of the vision of the R.

Other than that, the U's responsibility is to support the R. Back row information is part of this, and is usually conveyed via discrete signals. Interestingly enough, a back row call (block or attack) is one of the few you can call retroactively at the end of the rally.

There's other information such as FR/BR position of setters that can be conveyed. Some R's want anything you can give them, others don't want much at all. You need to discuss this with your partner pre-match to work out the details.

The umpire's responsibility goes from attack line to attack line. You are responsible for net violations, center line violations, substitutions, time-outs, alignment of the receiving team at the moment of serve, back-row attack, back-row block, antenna violations on the table side, supervising the score table (personnel as well as doing their jobs properly) and supervising bench behavior.

As Tim indicated, the umpire usually signals discreetly to the referee on a back-row attack or block. However, if, as Umpire, you are absolutely sure that a back-row attack or block has occurred, you can whistle and signal it if your partner doesn't.

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And if I was R I would want you to call it. I worked one night with a tremendous official...best I've ever worked with. She tried to give me a discreet signal for BA but I was too dense to figure out what she was doing. I'd want her to call what I miss. NOW, having said that I've also worked with some U's that were way too whistle happy and called a lot of things they shouldn't have because they were not watching their primary area and walking all over mine. If the U wants to run the entire court then we'll need to have a talk.

That's the nice thing about a back row attack or block - it can be called retroactively. Sure it's better to call it immediately when it happens, but you can let the rally play out & still go back & get it. Heck, you can even wait until they go back to their rotation positions, see where the player in question lines up and then call it.

The danger with the U making the BRA call too quickly is that their primary focus for back row purposes is tracking the position of the players. The other part of the equation is judging the height of the ball, - that's the R's job, and they almost always have the better angle to make this judgement. With the BRB it's where the player's hands are that's important - again something that may be difficult for the U to see. If the U is going to blow the whistle on this they have to be 200% sure it's right - maybe or close doesn't cut it. It would be real embarassing to have the U blow the whistle & signal BRA at the same time the R is waving it off with the safe signal.