Being on a pedestal = ineffective communication?

[Back In The Saddle]

I worked a frosh girls tourney yesterday, the sort of event where you see every team several times and by the end of the day you know where every player plays, who they sub for, what offense they run, etc.

I'm R, and I note that Copper Hills' setters are unmistakably not opposite (they run a 6-2). One is lined up at CF (holding hands with the RF, waiting to swap after the serve), the other is at LB. I signal for serve then call IA when it's contacted. Coach understandably wants to know who's out of alignment. I tell her across the floor that either 4 or 7 is out, because they are not opposite.

My U, properly I think, grabs the line up and he and the coach look at it together for a while. My partner can't figure out who's out, and calls for a re-serve, which I go with. Sure enough, on the re-serve, the BR setter is lined up as CB (more correctly, the libero who was lined up at CB has moved to LB, the setter is in the same place she was).

There has to be a better way to handle this. I know it was my bad for not knowing which setter was out of alignment. But that really shouldn't matter that much, it was clearly an IA. I could have easily explained what I saw to the coach if I were the U. But being "stuck" up top, and not feeling like I can carry on a conversation by shouting across the court, I'm kind of stuck. And with my U not being able to figure it out...

U and I talked after that game and he decided that if it happened again, he'll just tell coach that I've got something, he's not sure what it is, but we're going with it. That seems better than what we did. But still not ideal. Fortunately it didn't happen again.

Unfortunately it happened again in a later match, with a different partner, and I didn't call it because I didn't want a repeat of what happened previously. Chicken? Possibly. But I was taught long ago not to call what I don't know how to enforce.

So...what's a poor R to do?

Should I call my U across, chat with him, and have him relay it to the coach? Should I call the coach across and talk directly? Should I call a captain over, and have her relay the details? Should I come down and go across to talk?

Thoughts?

[refnrev]

I'm trying to make sure I;m picturing this correctly. Did you call IA on the serving or receiving team. If it was on the serving team, why wasn't the U on top of it? And why were you looking that way. If it was on the receiving team the U wouldn't have been looking that way, but why did it take so long with a card or wheel? I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just trying to understand why there was so much confusion?

[FMadera]

Originally Posted by refnrev

I'm trying to make sure I;m picturing this correctly. Did you call IA on the serving or receiving team. If it was on the serving team, why wasn't the U on top of it? And why were you looking that way. If it was on the receiving team the U wouldn't have been looking that way, but why did it take so long with a card or wheel? I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just trying to understand why there was so much confusion?

Rev,

I think you're backward here...

U would be looking at the receiving team, not the serving team.

[Back In The Saddle]

I was the R, and was looking at the serving team. The U was watching the receiving team. And since we were using volunteers for line judges and scorekeeping, some games the best we could get was somebody to flip the numbers on the flippy-scoreboard-thing. So no actual scorekeeper that game.

My U did not use a lineup card or wheel. He only had the submitted lineup to work from. Still...how difficult can it be? The team was serving, and they didn't sub out their setters. So start with the server, back up two to the CF and see if the FR setter is supposed to be in that position. If not, it's her. If so, it's the BR setter that's out. And while checking the back row would be slightly more confusing since the libero was in the game, the libero's the only one she would be overlapped with.

As a side note, I was going to try and work some of these games without the wheel, just to see how I did. But the first game I was going to try, we didn't have a real scorekeeper. Perhaps it was caution, perhaps it was cowardice, but I didn't want to be in a position where nobody knew for sure what the current rotations were supposed to be. So I never did try without it.

[refnrev]

Originally Posted by FMadera

Rev,

I think you're backward here...

U would be looking at the receiving team, not the serving team.

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O my gosh. I cannot believe I wrote what I did! This is what happens when you try to post something when you have a meeting starting in about 5 minutes and you try to rush to get it in. I still cannot believe I posted that! Trust me I do actually know better than that. (However, I did work a MS game once with a guy who watched the wrong way the entire match... despite the fact that I was the 3rd offfical in a week that told him he was watching the wrong way! He actually called a foot fault -- which was nowhwere close to a fault -- on the serve as U.) I am really embarassed!