There are stupid parents and then there are IDIOTS......

I've officiated youth basketball (8th grade and below in my mind) for 17+ years.  I've officiated CYO, AAU and Club basketball circuits.  Throughout all those years, you see a little bit of everything.   For the most part, you get nice and support parents.  Despite the bad raps, most youth coaches are ok too.

On the flip side, there are some parents who seem intent on reliving their lives through their kids OR the parents who think their kid is the superstar and whine about every call to the refs.

Today, I had one of the latter.  I'd seen this particular parent before in the previous years.  He's always yelling at his kid and then yelling at the referees.  Since he was in the stands, my partner and I just ignored him.  However, after the game ended (his son's team lost by about 15), came over to us and whined that his son was fouled the whole game.  I don't believe he was worried that his son's team had actually lost.

In any case, my partner and I just ignored the parent.  However, my partner and I did have to get our payment from the tournament director and the parent was still around.  I guess he couldn't stand us and he said to my face that "we should return our money".

I usually don't do this (and not recommended for newer officials) but I basically told the parent he needed to keep his opinion to himself.  I'm surprised the team that this parent supports doesn't keep a tighter rein on the guy.  After all, the parent is a terrible example for his son.  His son is a decent but not particularly great player.   Imagine if you're in the son's shoes.  Your team lost and your dad is complaining to the referees.  What happens when the kid gets to high school and he gets cut or doesn't play much?  

In any case, the crazy parent didn't overshadow a good day on the court.  There were two solid games and one so-so game.  I did alright though I was slowed by my bad left ankle.  By the last game, after getting warm, I was doing fine though the ankle is a little sore now.

Welcome to Officiating!

I got asked to help out with new referee training for my high school officiating association a couple of weeks ago.  Unfortunately, I couldn't make it last week due to work but stopped by the gym tonight to see if I could help out.

There were a ton of experienced officials participating so I didn't talk to the new "recruits" much.  However, I got a chance to see some on court work by the new folks and it was interesting to look at the new people work. 

With every group of new officials, you'll always get a wide diversity of people.  There always seem to be one or two that look comfortable out there despite their lack of experience.  On the other end, you'll get people who can't quite blow the whistle and do the right mechanics at the same time yet. 

The rest of the people are usually somewhere in between.   Some look decent but need some more experience to smooth out their mechanics.  Others just need to get into better shape.   On the flip side, some are so eager to please that it seems like they are the energizer bunny out there. 

It was actually good for me to show up at the training session.  I may be a veteran in terms of the number of years that I've officiated but I don't have a lot of big game experience.  The reason I started this blog was because I realized I needed to continue to learn and improve.  Maybe I won't improve as drastically as some of these new folks will, but I feel I still have a lot of room to grow.  

If given a chance, I would say one thing to the new officials.  Your learning and training never stop, even after they complete their training over the next few weeks.  There are always new situations that will occur from game to game.   While the lack of experience may frustrate people, mistakes are the only way you will learn and grow.  

The intersection of officiating and life can be a frustrating one......

I've noted in this blog in recent months that I haven't been officiating much.  Part of is getting some mental downtime.  The other thing is that work just simply gets in the way.  A great example is tonight.  I was off for Friday and today while I went on a trip over the weekend.  When I got home tonight to check my work email, I realized I had training scheduled tomorrow afternoon which conflicted with a couple of youth games I had just accepted last Thursday.

Over the years, I think I've developed a reputation of being reliable and dependable.  I don't recall ever having to turn back games at the last moment.  If I wasn't sure I couldn't make games, I wouldn't take them.  If any conflicts came home, I generally notified the assignor a couple of days in advance.

That reputation will help me get past this situation tonight.  However, it reminds me that balancing officiating with other aspects of your life is difficult.  I'm fortunate to not have a family or other obligations besides work at the moment.

Officiating is a fun advocation (hobby if you must).  I always like to work more and get better but the reality of life sometimes gets in the way.

A foul is a foul when the official calls it......

I spent most of my time this weekend camping and white water rafting.   However, the night before I headed up, I was sleeping over a friend's place and brought along some reading material in the form of "Referee" magazine.

There was an interesting article on "intentional fouls" and how the application of the rule these days stray far from the actual written rule these days.

That article got me to think about a few things involving basketball officiating and regular personal fouls.  One of the annoyances I have with officiating is with parents (youth level) and players (adult leagues) that cry about fouls that WEREN'T called.  Not to pick on the parents or adult league players as high school and college coaches will whine too.  However, they are generally better informed about the game than parents and adult league players.

When it comes to officiating basketball, calling fouls is very subjective.  The basic definition of a personal fouls is that a player cannot impede the normal offensive or defensive movements of an opposing player.

However, officials usually apply this rule with the philosophy of advantage / disadvantage.  Did a player gain any advantage by performing some action (holding, hand checking, etc, etc)?  If the answer is YES, then the official will blow the whistle and call the foul.  If the answer is NO, then the play will go on.

That is why my subject line says:  A foul is a foul when the official calls it


I am not saying that officials are perfect.  We WILL miss some fouls that should have been called.   However, everyone needs to give the officials more credit.  If you felt that a foul should have been called but it wasn't, then give the official the benefit of the doubt.  They probably had a good reason for not blowing the whistle.

Rather than arguing about it, you should quietly talk to the official during a time out and see what they say about the situation.  Arguing about a non-call is generally non-productive.  Officials will not go back and suddenly change their non-call.  Plus, this could lead to a technical foul if things go too far.  

Just some things to keep in mind from the perspective of an official.

Taking Time Off Mentally

I love to officiate basketball.  Despite not officiating much recently, I have to admit there's a great rush when you officiate a great basketball game.

On the other hand, there's a reason why I take time off.   I don't know if it's my personality, but I find it a mental strain to work so many games constantly.  I don't think I have thin skin but perhaps I am more emotional than other officials.

There are some fellow officials I know who can easily officiate 4 to 5 days a week for almost the entire year.  There is enough basketball games between youth, AAU, high school and adult leagues/tournaments if want it.

For me, my busiest time is between November and May.  I work high school game constantly during that time as well youth and adult leagues/tournaments.  However, once May ends and the season ends, I go into hibernation a bit.  I still officiate every now and then but don't take as many games.  I really enjoy the downtime away from officiating.  

I compare the downtime to taking a vacation from your regular job.  Many people work years without taking a vacation.  However, as a few of my friends told me,  when you take a vacation from work, you realize how much stress you go through on a day to day basis.   Vacation allows you to get away and forget about work (at least for a short while).

So while I did work a bit the last few days, I have enjoyed my time away from officiating.  In about a month or so, youth volleyball is going to start up and I'll probably be involved.  Then before you know it, high school basketball is coming around the corner.

Been a while.......

I'm still here but after running into some work issues the past few months, I haven't officiated that much. I did work the past couple of weekends and got in some good games but otherwise laying low. As weird it sounds, my passion for officiating has cooled a bit in wake of my work issues.

I'm not sure if it's due to the stress at work or just tired of the noise that accompanies officiating. Generally, I can put it aside pretty easily, but lately I've been tired of it. So all in now, I will officiate every now and then but otherwise, lay low to recharge my batteries and rest up mentally.

Some coaches have no clue........

I got a chance to officiate a youth basketball tournament today (I believe it was considered an AAU tournament). This was some of the items my partner and I observed and/or had to deal with:

#1

In the second game of the day, one team (Red) was just crushing their opponent (Black). Red was using their press defense from the get go and Black was not good enough to handle it. At halftime, the score was something like 31-3. One would think the Red coach would stop pressing and work on something things.

Nope. The Red team kept pressing and the final score was 68-8. A parent from another team that was playing in the next game talked to one of the Red team's assistant coaches about the matter. The parent was told the Red team was prepping for another tournament they were playing in. If Red was indeed prepping, then they have a lot to work on. Their press was sloppy with kids gambling on steals and getting beat. When the kids did get steals, they took quick shots and otherwise did not play fundamental basketball. A better team would have eaten them alive.

#2

In a game between teams I will simply call White and Black, my partner and I had to deal with unruly coaches. Minutes into the game, a White assistant coach was complaining that I missed an out of bounds call. I simply told the assistant coach that I didn't particularly care about what he thought as I saw what I saw. The White assistant coach started complaining even more after that so I told the head coach to calm his assistant down and issued a warning.

On the other hand, the Black team coaches were equally annoying. My partner and I were forced to call several fouls on one of the Black team players. These were legitimate fouls but the head coach was like "You called 4 fouls on one player, what's up with that?" Then he went on to ask me "Did you see what happened yesterday?"

My answer to the Black head coach was "The four fouls were all legitimate. I was not here yesterday so I don't know what happened but it doesn't apply to today's game anyway". Afterward, the assistant coaches for Black started getting into it and I issued a warning to the Black team as well. Three technicals later, I guess the Black team didn't quite listen to us.

All in all, it was an interesting day officiating. It's fine if coaches want to ask questions but these youth coaches sometimes have no idea of what they are saying or doing. I have minimal patience for these coaches.