One of those days

One things many people don't realize is that sports officials have real lives. Something things happen at work that carry over into your officiating. Today may have been one of those days for me. I had a reasonable first six hours of work. However, the last couple was spent chasing down something for a customer. It took a while but my team got the situation resolved.

Alas, I had a couple of youth volleyball games to work afterward. The first game was a 3rd grade game. While the teams weren't super skilled, they were very evenly matched. That meant for a lot of focus in the game as the final scores were 25-23, 23-25, 15-11 for the home team. The home team's coach had a minor complaint of me missing a double hit. I'll admit that the player probably did accidentlally do a double hit but given that it was 3rd grade, it wasn't intentional so I let the play go.

The second game was a 5th grade game. Both teams were fairly solid but the home team was the slightly better team. As I went through the first set, there was something I probably missed. A visiting team's play ran into the net while trying to bump the ball. The home coach asked if it was a violation. For the first time this season, I felt like I locked up a bit. I told the coach that it was after the player bumped the ball so I passed on it. I will freely admit that I probably missed the call. I came home and looked up the volleyball rules and did some studying earlier.

The home team pulled away and won the first match. The tough day at work must have tired me out. As I worked the second match, I found myself hoping the game would end soon. The sports officials gods must have been watching as several balls landed in my area where no line judge could help me. I made the best decision that I could. Judging from the reaction of the coach, I may have missed a couple of calls. I also had to deal with the unusual situation of a small gymnasium that I wasn't familiar with as well.

All in all, I don't feel like I did the best job today. I was mentally a step slow and my inexperience in volleyball did catch up with me. However, my confidence isn't down. I realized that I have to brush up more on volleyball basics and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. Tomorrow will be a bit of a different challenge. The gym I will be working at is another smaller gym with a low ceiling. Fortunately, I have little kids so hopefully the balls won't be going as high in the air.