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Sports Bar Whats On Your Mind Thread

@AP2.0 I’d like to hear more about your referee escapades. I’m curious about the life of an sports official, like what is the process. Basically a day in the life of a basketball referee, perhaps?
 
@AP2.0 I’d like to hear more about your referee escapades. I’m curious about the life of an sports official, like what is the process. Basically a day in the life of a basketball referee, perhaps?
Sure

The day in the life is kinda non existent cause I do it after work lol. I'm basically on here with y'all all day when I'm not busy at work but lemme discuss it from this perspective.

This is my 9th year doing this. I wish I would've done it a lot sooner. But I get my schedule for games at least a week out. I'll look at the matchups and decide how I'm going to mentally prepare for each game.

Is it a rivalry? Then I need to get locked in cause records go out the window but if they are both good and the game might decide district winners, then you have to be mindful of emotions. If it's a snooze fest then I start thinking of things I can be working on. Watching film is one thing but actual games are very vital to development imo. When I say I tend to work on things, I'm mainly talking about my positioning on the court, my court presence, my vocal projection and hand signals when I report fouls, etc. Those games are typically a lot slower and I can focus on my primary area of coverage and start to look for things that a lot of other officials tend to miss because they ball watch.

I have more but let me know if this is what you had in mind when you asked me this.
 
Sure

The day in the life is kinda non existent cause I do it after work lol. I'm basically on here with y'all all day when I'm not busy at work but lemme discuss it from this perspective.

This is my 9th year doing this. I wish I would've done it a lot sooner. But I get my schedule for games at least a week out. I'll look at the matchups and decide how I'm going to mentally prepare for each game.

Is it a rivalry? Then I need to get locked in cause records go out the window but if they are both good and the game might decide district winners, then you have to be mindful of emotions. If it's a snooze fest then I start thinking of things I can be working on. Watching film is one thing but actual games are very vital to development imo. When I say I tend to work on things, I'm mainly talking about my positioning on the court, my court presence, my vocal projection and hand signals when I report fouls, etc. Those games are typically a lot slower and I can focus on my primary area of coverage and start to look for things that a lot of other officials tend to miss because they ball watch.

I have more but let me know if this is what you had in mind when you asked me this.
Speaking of work, where is L…..*dial tone*
 
Sure

The day in the life is kinda non existent cause I do it after work lol. I'm basically on here with y'all all day when I'm not busy at work but lemme discuss it from this perspective.

This is my 9th year doing this. I wish I would've done it a lot sooner. But I get my schedule for games at least a week out. I'll look at the matchups and decide how I'm going to mentally prepare for each game.

Is it a rivalry? Then I need to get locked in cause records go out the window but if they are both good and the game might decide district winners, then you have to be mindful of emotions. If it's a snooze fest then I start thinking of things I can be working on. Watching film is one thing but actual games are very vital to development imo. When I say I tend to work on things, I'm mainly talking about my positioning on the court, my court presence, my vocal projection and hand signals when I report fouls, etc. Those games are typically a lot slower and I can focus on my primary area of coverage and start to look for things that a lot of other officials tend to miss because they ball watch.

I have more but let me know if this is what you had in mind when you asked me this.
@AP2.0 and the bolded, lol

761A600F-60C2-4D00-A00A-2E97F34C118E.gif
 
Sure

The day in the life is kinda non existent cause I do it after work lol. I'm basically on here with y'all all day when I'm not busy at work but lemme discuss it from this perspective.

This is my 9th year doing this. I wish I would've done it a lot sooner. But I get my schedule for games at least a week out. I'll look at the matchups and decide how I'm going to mentally prepare for each game.

Is it a rivalry? Then I need to get locked in cause records go out the window but if they are both good and the game might decide district winners, then you have to be mindful of emotions. If it's a snooze fest then I start thinking of things I can be working on. Watching film is one thing but actual games are very vital to development imo. When I say I tend to work on things, I'm mainly talking about my positioning on the court, my court presence, my vocal projection and hand signals when I report fouls, etc. Those games are typically a lot slower and I can focus on my primary area of coverage and start to look for things that a lot of other officials tend to miss because they ball watch.

I have more but let me know if this is what you had in mind when you asked me this.
Idk if I've told this to y'all but a dude told me something a long ass time ago that has stuck with me ever since. He was like when you call a girls game, use the pre game to see who can actually dribble, who can actually shoot, pass, etc... If the whole team has on kneepads, you're gonna be in for a long night. I thought he was full of shit but every game that I've had where the teams have knee pads on was a foul fest. Those games are the worst bc you are doing more babysitting than refereeing. To me, the best games are the ones where it's like I'm not there. I'm only blowing my whistle to signal the ball out of bounds, calling timeouts... Administrative type shit. I hate calling ticky tack fouls but sometimes you have to in order to keep the game/players from getting out of control.

I mentioned watching off ball in my last post. 90% of fights start from off ball shit going on. You have to train yourself/eyes to look off ball when the ball isn't in your primary area of coverage with no competitive matchups. When I see lil shit going on, I tell them in game "hey, cut that shit out". Usually that does it cause it lets them know I'm looking. I then go to each coach at some point and tell them hey, talk to him cause if he do it again, I'm throwing him out. This also helps as well.

Knock twice and I were refereeing maybe shoot 7yrs ago at this cross town rivalry game and a fight broke out in that bitch 🤣. As it was happening i was nervous cause that shit started looking like malice at the palace. I ended up calling the game with like 4 min left on the clock. When I went back to watch the film, I noted how many fouls were called, how many intentional fouls we called, etc..I felt like we did everything we could. Player A fouled Player B on the way to the basket forcing him into the padding that's usually on the wall under the goal. Player A walks off... Player B turns around and sees Player C who they've been going at it with the entire night at various points in the game. Player A swings on em and it was a brawl after that.

It was my second year and one of my first assignments as the designated R official (there's the R, and two umpires). This was a classic case of knowing what you do cause you read about it in the rules book but failing at it when it actually happens in your game. My crew was supposed to do so much shit but at the time, I was just trying to make sure I wasn't gonna get swung on so I just watched and observed. I let the coaches and off duty police break everything up. By rule we were supposed to note who all came off the bench and disqualify them and if there were enough players, kick the fans out and finish the game. It was a blowout anyway and neither one of them were going to the playoffs so fuck that.

Haven't had a fight in a game since.
 
Damn I didn’t know it was that serious. Wearing knee pads automatically says lots of fouls being called and more aggression? I guess I could see that with women. So when you red, where on the court are you usually? Sideline? Under the basket?
 
Damn I didn’t know it was that serious. Wearing knee pads automatically says lots of fouls being called and more aggression? I guess I could see that with women. So when you red, where on the court are you usually? Sideline? Under the basket?
Girls love to dive for loose balls but that leads them into diving into other players as well. Girls are aggressive af in my observation. A lot of these girls only play cause it's probably not that many girls interested in hoops. I haven't seen a single girl that was like Simone Augustus when she was in high school. The talent drop off has been massive during her time here in BR.

For your other question, there's the Referee and the two umpires. The scheduling secretary usually looks at the game to determine who is designated as what. We have a lot of very good officials so I'm never upset if I'm on a crew and one of the umpires and not the Referee. There's no difference in pay and the Referee has the responsibility of interpreting the rules in case some fuck shit go off. I know a good deal of the rulebook but if some obscure shit happens, then I'ma be SOL. I do usually keep the rule book in my bag at all times though but fortunate I've never had no super crazy shit happen and besides, the coach don't know the rules anyway so you can BS em and they won't know the difference.

Anyway, so there are 3 positions on the court that you'll occupy at any given point in the game

Lead - baseline official
Center - think free throw line extended
Trail - this is the one near the coach

They form a triangle to keep all the players inside. You have to know who is responsible for what at all times so that y'all not blowing whistles all willy nilly. You have to know your primary area of coverage and your secondary area. The lead official forces the rotation. In other words, if he is opposite of the basket and an entry pass is made in the post, the lead official goes to the now strong side, the trail drops down to become Center, and the old center goes up to become trail. This is high school mechanic though. In the NBA, it's the same concept but from what I've been told, if they see a foul, they call that shit no matter where it is in relation to them.

You get in a lot of trouble doing that shit in high school because if you calling calls from the other side of the court on one end and not the other, the coach gonna bitch. Or you'll get a coach that wants you to explain everything after that. Basically, you've ruined your credibility. If you're calling something way over there, who's looking at the elbow to the nuts in your area?
 
Y’all take care of yourselves please. Just found out that someone who graduated from my high school that I knew personally died of a heart attack at 34 a few days ago. I know some of us think we are still very young but we gotta take better care of ourselves, myself included. RIP to him
 
There was a scrimmage for new officials at a school nearby my house so I decided to pull up and see what the new officials are working with.

Gonna be a long season

I wonder if people looked at me when I was a first year and thought I sucked
 
There was a scrimmage for new officials at a school nearby my house so I decided to pull up and see what the new officials are working with.

Gonna be a long season

I wonder if people looked at me when I was a first year and thought I sucked

What’s the one foul that annoys you as an official that’s hard to call?
 
What’s the one foul that annoys you as an official that’s hard to call?
Block/charge hands down cause we don't have a restricted area like the NBA where if you're automatically outside of it, 9/10 they'll call a charge.

A general rule of thumb is if players are hitting the floor, you gotta have a whistle on it but that shit can be hard for a newer official cause not only have they not fine tuned their mechanics but their judgment is shit.

I'm probably 50/50 with getting these "right". The key is do you have the ability to sell it. I've been wrong plenty of times but no one really knew cause I came out strong with my mechanic and projection. If you come out soft with it, your credibility will be questioned all night and you don't want that
 
@Infamous114 I am happy that the Panthers are the best team in the NHL and I’m actually watching hockey regularly again but they gotta get rid of the coach who knew that young player was being sexually assaulted by the blackhawks video person. Absolutely disgusting
 
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