Some Universal Truths About Officiating

Early this past Saturday, I hoped over to a local softball field for a softball rules and umpiring clinic.   Am I becoming a baseball or softball umpire?  Hardly.  However, I am participating in a adult softball league for the first time.  The league is run by the same group that runs a summer basketball league that I also participate in during the summer.  Both softball and basketball have players from all the teams umpire / officiate games throughout the season.  

The plus is players get to see both sides.  The minus is that many people are NOT trained officials.   I was asked to drop by the softball clinic today as another guy on my team couldn't make it.  I didn't mind as it was close to home plus I was curious about softball rules.  I watch enough baseball to know the basics but I'm sure there are details I didn't know about. 

However, I didn't learn a ton about detailed softball rules.  Most of the stuff focused on how the league runs things and some discussion on specific situations like the infield fly rule among a few other things. That was actually fine as it is almost impossible to learn "EVERYTHING" in 1 1/2 hours of talking. 

The most interesting part was when the softball league coordinators discussed the basic of umpiring a game.  There was talk about confidence, positioning and communication.  That sounds a lot like just about any other sport you would officiate out there.  

The softball league coordinators points:

FOCUS / BE ENGAGED:  Officiating is sometimes seen as a chore in these self officiated sports leagues.  But if you are working any sporting event,  you need to be engaged and look like you care.  Even if you're not getting paid, the teams deserve a good effort from everyone involed.  

POSITIONING:   The engagement discussion leads to positioning.  Just like basketball, you need to see the play and position yourself to see everything you need to see.  In softball, you need to be able to see the runner, fielder AND the ball on mostly every play.  This means you have to move as every play will be different.  One spot will not do it.  

COMMUNICATION:  Just with any sports, you have to communicate (loudly as noted early).  You need to communicate with your other umpires and the teams as well on situations.  

I don't know if I will umpire any games for my team this season.  If I do, I feel comfortable in working the games.  I'm sure that unusual situation will throw me off.  However, as a long time basketball official, the basic principles of focus, positioning and communication are something that can be easily adapted to softball.  The rest is learned through experience and reading rules more.  

"Ball Don't Lie"

Maybe I'm showing my age but it's only been recently that I've been hearing the term "Ball Don't Lie" thrown around.    I read online that the term originated in the NBA and has filtered down to the lower levels.

The term is a reference to a foul called by an official that people feel is unwarranted.   It is used in situations when the offended player shoots and misses their free throws.   It is an insult to the offended player shooting because he didn't deserve the foul.  Additionally, it is bit of a snide remark to officials for making what some people felt was a unwarranted foul call.

Personally, I find it a bit annoying.  It's not the fault of the player that got fouled.  If there is a questionable foul call, it is what it is.  From an officials perspective, It's a way of making a snide remark to the official without directly confronting the official.

I'm not sure what happened to good sportsmanship and respecting an officials call.  NBA players and coaches tend to complain a lot to officials.  A lot of that is shown on TV and thus influences the behavior of many people when they play basketball.   I see it on the courts as a player and an official.

Unfortunately, not a lot you can do about it.  I would ask that people enjoy the NBA game as entertainment but not emulate some of the antics out there.

It's A Matter Of Perspective

I play in quite a few adult basketball leagues throughout the year.  In most of the leagues, there are NO paid officials.  Most of the games are officiated by teams on their bye weeks.   If you're a basketball official reading this, you can imagine how inconsistent the officiating can get.   Fortunately, while the leagues are competitive, the games never get out of hand.

As I am generally the most experienced official in these leagues, I volunteer a lot of time officiating when there aren't enough people from the teams to work certain games.   I don't mind helping out but occasionally my bad side comes out.

Something I wondered for a long time is why players complain even when I am officiating.  I always hear people say they are "glad" I am officiating.  I can understand because the players in the league don't officiate regularly.  So there will be inconsistency and that leads to frustration.   I generally feel I am consistent in what I call. Yet, some level of complaining still persists.

After officiating Monday evening and being slightly annoyed, I had some ideas:

1.
Players are competitive and if they feel there should have been a whistle, they will complain no matter who it is that is officiating.  This part I actually have no problems with.  It's just a fact of life that all basketball officials face.

2.
Inexperienced officials could swing toward blowing the whistle TOO MANY times or NOT ENOUGH times.  More experienced officials will tend to fall somewhere in between.  The reason is the experienced officials are constantly analyzing plays and see if a whistle is needed.

Unfortunately players don't understand that officials are there to make a judgement call.  So if they are used to an official calling a lot of fouls, then the more experienced officials is seemingly calling LESS.  If players are used to NOT ENOUGH fouls, the experienced official is seemingly calling MORE.

3.
I realized I need to not hold players to my own standards.    I always remind myself that I will do my best to minimize my complaining when I am coaching or playing in leagues.  In general, I am pretty good though I will express my frustration at times.  In essence, I am not perfect just like everyone else.

At the end of the day, it's a matter of perspective.    Even though I have a ton of basketball experience, I'm still learning every day I am on the court.

You Have Questions, We Have Answers

I had lunch with a fellow basketball official in late November and he mentioned that he had heard about my blog. While he hadn't read it too much, he liked what I was doing and had a suggestion.  He asked me to write something along the lines regarding "officials and communication".

This particular post will focus a little bit on communication though not all of the items I will write about eventually.  Consider this a precursor and/or a complaint session!  

I am pretty sure I posted about this before but one of the lessons I learned about sports officiating is that you don't just "blow the whistle".    I've been told many times by other officials that I "blow the whistle" good.  In layman's terms, I have fairly good judgement on game situations.

While it is great that fellow officials support your judgement, 50% of your calls will not be favorable to a certain team.  Even if you are 100% sure you are right, there will be people (mainly coaches, sometimes players) that will question your calls. 

In years past, if someone questioned my call, I would either get defensive or angry (depending on the type of league and the situation).  Occasionally, I would also wonder if maybe "I got the call wrong".  That type of attitude really drains you of your confidence. 

Yet in the past few years, two things have changed.  One, I am more confident in my calls.  I don't question myself.  It doesn't mean I get things wrong but I don't get down on myself.  You just acknowledge that "maybe you could have done better" and just move on. The second part is most important though.  If someone DOES question you, then you have to give a good answer:   Coaches may not like your answer but they will respect you if you talk to them. 

I used to NOT like dealing with coaches.  Yet for some reason, I welcome coaches questioning me these days.  A part of it may be that my job requires me to talk to customers in a sales capacity.  I get questions (or objections) about our products on a daily basis.  In sales, you have to stay calm, be relaxed and deal with objections in a very factual manner.  Good practice for officiating!  

Now, onto the "complaint" section.   For some reason, especially in youth and adult leagues, complaining to officials is a given:

"Where's the foul"

"Travel"

"3 seconds"

"Etc"

If people are more polite and "ask" what the officials saw, we will be more inclined to respond more politely.  However, if people just scream at officials about missed calls, we are more likely to ignore them (at best) or give them a technical (at worst). 

As I noted in the subject line, "You Have Questions, We Have Answers".  People are always welcome to ask us a question (well, maybe not EVERY call, but major ones).  Officials will accommodate with answers as best they can. 

Playoff Atmosphere

Coming into this high school season, I had every intention of limiting my schedule a bit.  Work was just too busy.  It was stressful trying to leave work early to make it to gyms in time for games.

However, I did receive a couple games from an assignor fairly early including one tonight.  Given my leave of absence last season, I figured they were non-marquee games and so I just accepted them and moved on. As the preseason wore on in 2012, something interesting happened.   The two teams I had tonight had established themselves as potentially the top two teams in the league.

My non-marquee game had suddenly turned into first meeting of the season between two teams who might meet again in the playoffs and/or championship.  The visiting team was the defending league champion and favorite to win the championship game.  The home team had established themselves as a solid team but was it enough to dethrone the defending champs? In an up and down game, the visitors rallied for a late five point deficit and knock off the home team 48-41.

How did the officiating go?  Overall, I think my partner and I did fine.  We faced several frustrating obstacles.  The first was that the gym where the game was played is not regulation length wise (it is wide enough).   It compacted things a bit and the game was a little physical.

My partner and I had discussed during the pre-game to "let the teams play a bit".   Both teams did play and we did let them try to play through things.  In the first half, we didn't have a lot of team fouls.  The second half played out similarly until the end when the home team has to foul to try to get back into the game.

The second obstacle was the scoreboard horn WAS NOT WORKING.  Overall, it wasn't a big deal EXCEPT for a play at the end of the second period.  The visiting team managed to secure the ball for a fast break in the final seconds.  The gym had only one scoreboard.  As the visiting player drove to the basket, I had to sneak peeks at both the player and the clock to see if the player got the shot off in time. In that situation, I wasn't particularly worried about a foul.  My partner told me there wasn't a foul but I learned how to handle it for the future.  If there is a play like that in the future, I would just make sure the shot got off in time and my partner would need to pick up defense and fouls.   We didn't really pre-game it as it's a rare situation for the horn not to work.

The last obstacle was the scorekeepers were not very experienced.  Lots of shot clock resets when it wasn't needed, lots of clocks not starting time and other things.  I corrected the clocks multiple times and know I probably missed a few as I did not want to impede the flow of the game (offensive team rebounded the ball, reset and took a quick shot).

There was also a Chris Webber moment.  The home team was trailing late and had the ball underneath their basket.  The visiting team defended the inbounds well and the home team player inbounding signaled for a timeout.  I remember thinking "Partner, ignore it" but he granted the timeout.  Unfortunately, the home team was OUT OF TIMEOUTS.  My partner noted he forgot that the home team was out of timeouts.   It wasn't really his fault nor the player's fault.  I had informed the home team coach that he has no more timeouts after the last one had been called a few minutes earlier.

Overall, the game itself was great.  The obstacles were a little annoying but overall the game was under control.  I had some fun as well.  Can't complain for a guy who doesn't have a lot of games to get a solid game under the beat.   One can dream, but I'd love to work these two teams again in the playoffs or championship!

Referee's Most Embarrassing Moment

I worked a JV boys basketball tournament this afternoon and overall had a good day.  I had two games which were the semi-finals for this particular bracket of the tournament.  The first game was a bit of a mismatch as one of the teams was just a little bit more athletic and they won by 20.  The second game was a tight and ugly affair.  Both teams struggled to get into their offense though the winning team eventually pulled away for a 39-33 win.

I would normally talk about the game but the second game gave me a "old man" or "referee's most embarrassing" moment.  During a transition, I TRIPPED AND FELL hard to the ground.  Whoops.  I think I got my feet crossed up a bit.  I bounced right back up and get back into the play with no harm done.  Well, except my hamstring is a little tight, my hip is a little sore and I scratched up my left elbow a bit.

I wasn't embarrassed as things happen occasionally.  :)

Long Day Of Officiating

When I first started officiated youth basketball around 1993, I dedicated myself to it.  I would leave my Friday evenings and Saturday's open just so I could officiate.  Whether the gym was near or far, I made the trek out there.

As time as moved on, I realized I didn't want to spend my whole day officiating.  It's tiring.  It can be stressful.  Simply put,  sometimes officiating is something that should be done in moderation.   So for much of the past five years or so, I've cut back and work a few games here and there.  I look at it as a chance to catch up with people around the league, get a little exercise and get paid for it.

Today was a major exception.  Due to a major shortage of officials, I signed up for SEVEN games spread over two gyms.  I'm too tired to write a ton but some highlights and lowlights on the day.

• The first two games of the day (4th grade / 5th grade) were barn burners.  The 4th grade game ended up with one team winning at the buzzer 11-10.  The 5th Grade game had a final score of 24-22.  It was a fun / intense way to begin a game.  
• At the first gym, I was officiating solo.   It was fine for the 4th grade game but the 5th grade / 6th grade games I had were challenges to work due to the teams pressing.  I made it through but it wasn't the easiest thing in the world to do. 
• During the fourth grade game, an interesting situation occurred.  The wining team actually had TWO players with the game uniform numbers.  I was not aware of this when the game started but heard the coach mention to someone.  As the third quarter started, I issued a technical the protest of the coach.  The coach said "The school issued the uniforms like this and the other teams they had played in the weeks prior were ok with the jersey situation".  I politely disagreed with the coach and strongly suggested he take up the issue with the school.   The coach actually disagreed with me on this. 
• After working my first three games, it was time to get some food.  The area I was in had good food but parking was difficult.   After thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided to try and park at a nearby gym where an adult basketball tournament was going on.  I was going to be working the tournament tomorrow but wanted to take a look at the games happening.  PLUS, I knew they had some food there for players, coaches and officials.  I was fortunate to find a parking space near the gym.  I managed to watch a game, talk to a few folks, have a "pre-game" with one of the officials tomorrow (he was working today as well), and of course get some food. 
• After getting my food, I went off to officiate my second set of games.  Parking around this gym was a pain.  I looked around for some 20 minutes before settling on a stop 2 blocks (including one hill) away. This second set of games had higher caliber of teams but there wasn't anything too eventful. 
• The one exception was from a 5th grade team.  The visiting team was losing.  In the fourth quarter, a home team player set a pretty bad screen.  Both my partner and I had the foul called.  However, the assistant coach of the visiting team was complaining about the foul being flagrant or intentional.  It was just a BAD SCREEN.  I had to tell the assistant to calm down as I understood they were losing and maybe frustrated.   After the game, the assistant coach told me he was offended that I had mentioned they were losing.  He told me he was going to report me to the league for my comments (sure, go on ahead).  
• On the flip side, a parent of the home team also talked to me and my partner after the game.  The parent mentioned that a coach of the visiting team had made some comment to his son.  The coach had said something about the son being a "dirty player" or something.  I was a little shocked but not entirely surprised given the assistant coach's attitude toward me earlier.    I informed the home team parent that I would mention the incident to the league. 

All in all, it was a long day but a good day.  The weirdness aside, the games were competitive for the most part and the coaches were generally ok.