Quality of Officials Assigned to work Girls Game

[Bengal Maniac]

I highly doubt that most officials are in it for the money. They, like the coaches, are in it for the kids, the love of the game, and wanting to do something they enjoy. I am sure the officials like the extra knock around cash, who wouldn't. Maybe they make enough to take a nice vacation with the family or make the payments on a boat or go out for a few nice dinners, etc. Good for them. You have to also remember many of the high schools don't have lots of cash to pay officials much more than they do now. We all know the revenue sports football and boys basketball in most places carry the load. I think that is great so as many students as possible can play as many sports/activities as the schools can support with students and funds.

[RCC9]

RCC9, itsagame - No, there are not a lot of Sparky Andersons out there. I did my refereeing time on several levels including college, but that was some time ago. That by no means makes me an expert nor does it mean that refereeing was better years ago. We had clinics and camps that we had to attend on our own time with our own money, not take an online test and attend an association meeting like most today. Years ago, there weren't that many officials because we got our games from coaches and athletic directors - no assigners like today. If you were any good, coaches wanted you back. If you weren't, you didn't get very many games. Today assigners get paid, in part, by the number of officials in an association so it is to their advantage to get as many officials as possible no matter how good or bad they are.

 

I honestly don't know which way is better - assigners or referees getting their own games. I know that I had as many games as I wanted. You could probably start another thread on the good and bad of both ways referees have gotten games.

 

As far as a solution, I can use the Ohio model that has been written about in Referee magazine several times as maybe something KY could try. They increased fees to become an official, increased training requirements putting ownership on the individual referee and increased evaluations. The result? More referees than the state association has ever had. You mention additional training to officials today, and the response has been stated on here already. It's part-time and not enough money in it. The first thing I was taught is that no one should get into officiating for the money, yet that seems to be the excuse as why refereeing is not better than it is.

 

Finally, I can't locate the forum rules where I get called bitter and attacking because I didn't agree with RCC9 and others. I'm stating my opinion, try to validate my opinion and not look at this forum as a popularity contest. No wonder this board goes dead at times!

 

Again, my comments had nothing to do with whether you agreed with me at all! I didn't really even state an opinion that contradicts yours. I just said I have no issues with them. I was commenting on the "how" you were replying. You seemed bitter, upset and aggressive!

 

My point was that I didn't even disagree with you or even really state an opinion other than I have no issues with our region today. I understand it's high school and you have good ones and bad ones. I just say adapt to what you're playing with. It's different state to state and region to region...so unless you play in a bubble, your team must adapt. I coached AAU for a long time. You talk about poor officiating and doing it for the money! Like I said, I taught my team to adapt and control what you can control. All I'm saying is that I rarely even notice the officials...unless it's one-sided. As a coach...you can typically tell right away how a game is going to be called or if you have good refs. I would figure that out early and let my team know what we were up against. We were prepared to play rough or prepared to play with touch fouls...so it made no difference as long as they were consistent and not one-sided.

 

Do I expect refs to be good...yes! But I understand why some are and some aren't. And for me...its just not a big deal. I can only rarely think of any time a ref cost me a game. Not even sure I can come up with an example. Yes, had some bad calls at the end of a game before, but I can also look back at that same game and know that we probably did something along the way that could have made that one last bad call a non issue...Missed layups, missed free throws, bad defense, turnovers, poor decisions. For me, it's never the ref. Just the way I look at it and I think too many people want to blame refs.

[Tiger1]

You, my friend, can give it a break. I am not an official. You couldn't pay me enough to take crap off of people like you or others here who are bashing officials. If there are so many terrible officials out there, what's wrong with inviting people to step into their shoes and fill the void?

 

You may not be an official, but have heard it so much from ones on this site that state to take the test and grab the whistle crap. But as far as officials taking crap off of me or anyone else, my response is that they are are not immune to criticism nor should they be. I had a lot of respect for officials back in the day because they knew the rules, not just thinking they do. There are some refs that call a fair and pretty accurate game in this day and age, but quite a bit that do an injustice to the game and players.

[scon36]

I highly doubt that most officials are in it for the money. They, like the coaches, are in it for the kids, the love of the game, and wanting to do something they enjoy. I am sure the officials like the extra knock around cash, who wouldn't. Maybe they make enough to take a nice vacation with the family or make the payments on a boat or go out for a few nice dinners, etc. Good for them. You have to also remember many of the high schools don't have lots of cash to pay officials much more than they do now. We all know the revenue sports football and boys basketball in most places carry the load. I think that is great so as many students as possible can play as many sports/activities as the schools can support with students and funds.

 

Coaches have got to love it because most stipends don't begin to cover their time and costs.

[Dozer61]

The only two things I don't like that they call on girls waaaaay more than on boys:

1. Traveling on a pump fake then drive from the perimeter

2. Carrying or palming the ball when dribbling

 

To that I would add what I call:

 

3. The dual possession foul that IMO should be called a jump ball and quickly for safety and negative game impact.

4. The lose ball foul when both girls get to the ball at the same time and possession has not been established by either.

[jimmyref]

To quote Denny Crum- "if a referee had good judgement, he wouldn't be a ref."

 

So we take the abuse, even though we get around 97-98% of the calls right, we train via clinics, and on court evaluations using video, and receive instant feedback on every call. I do about 100 games a year, from many levels. We are required to do both girls and boys games so good referees get both games. Only in college does the referees choose boys or girls. Girls games, contrary to what has been stated, I call closer to the rule book because girls can't take physical contact and it is a skill game in the rules. But legal contact does happen. Girls can do the jump stop, euro move and whatever they are coached to do. As to female coaches versus male, I find that female coaches do a better job of controlling their emotions than male. However remember in high school, they will still be the math teacher or the science teacher, regardless of their coaching record. I think that people watch a college coach and how he/she reacts, need to remember that if that college coach doesn't win, they are out of the job.

As to "grab a whistle' , I don't want you changing a tire, drawing up a will, fixing a leaky pipe or officiating if you aren't at the level of the job you are doing.