Game Log 6/13/2009: Damn it. I'm buying another T-shirt.

The first game today was very high quality. Summer ball...so only minor coach whining. I was slowing down at the spot--at least when I remembered, which was often--and the calls were all fine.

Then, I made a mistake that I swore this season that I wouldn't make again--and it was a big, impactful call with less than a minute left.

Shit. Damn, hell, and shit.

Blue is down by one. They're playing good defense. I hear people shouting "Foul!" There's minimal contact. I call a foul.

They weren't fouling.

Not much to say here, except it was probably the worst single call I've made in years. It was out of my area, it was wrong strategically, it was wrong factually, and I'm supposed to have learned that.

Massref very kindly told me that he's "been there, done that, bought the T-shirt" last time I made this error. But, for whatever reason, I guess I needed a second screw-up to get it in my head.

Damn. Damn, hell, shit, and damn.

I did the only thing I could do. I told the coach I'd blown the call. He was, needless to say, unhappy (unlike the incredibly classy guy in January). His team wasn't removed from the game...had the ball with a 2-point deficit (the kid only made one of two free throws) with 45 seconds left, then the ball with a 3-point deficit and 20 seconds to play.

But the coach was fixated on the call, actually shouting "Where's the makeup call? Where's the makeup call?"

Coach, I'll get them wrong on accident occasionally--and on very rare occasion s(today, alas, being one), egregiously. But I will never, ever get one wrong on purpose.

Anyway, the second game was a little bit of a blur. It was a blowout, and not much went wrong. I won't say my focus was 100%, but it was good enough.

It'd be nice if I could get right back out there to get this taste out of my mouth, but I have nothing on the schedule. I'll just re-commit to handing this situation better, and I'll be secretly thankful that I got to learn in a summer game instead of a big one later on.

THINGS I DID WELL: Bounced back from screwup, managed game after screwing it up, handled clock situations, slowed down at spot
THINGS TO WORK ON: Does three T-shirts mean that I need a hotel in the "been there, done that" location?

NEXT UP: As much as I hate summer ball, I wish I had a game right around the corner to wipe this one away. But, alas, I likely won't work again until November, unless there's some other tournament rolling into town..

Game Log 6/12/2009: Two summer blowouts

Ragged girls' varsity ball last night--twenty point games each. I focused primarily on slowing down at the spot, and my partner said I succeeded at that...but was too quick at the table. No sweat on that.

It was a little hard going to a two-person game, but I adjusted. It was harder for my partner.

Two notable occurrences:

1. In my first game, I was new lead when there was a big collision well behind me, at about halfcourt (as I was approaching the baseline). It was C's call all the way...but alas, there was no C. The coach of one of the teams who felt he was wronged ran out onto the floor. Not a little...to the center circle. My partner did not blow his whistle. (The ball eventually wound up out of bounds...long after the coach was on the floor.)

No T, no whistle to talk, no NOTHING. I was amazed, but could do next to nothing about it. I don't care that it was a coach getting blown out, or that the partner felt he missed the call, or that it was a summer tournament. I can't believe he had nothing.

2. In the second game, I had the team from the school where I teach. Normally, I dodge them, but it was summer ball and I couldn't find anyone to trade with. That, and the team was outgunned (as even the coach admitted). So I simply did the game.

There was one very mouthy parent from my HS. Maybe I don't like people giving my school a bad name, but she was bad. Lacking a gym administrator, I went to the coach and had the following exchange:

"Coach, that parent is really bugging me."
"That's not my job."
"It's not my job, Coach."

A couple of trips down the floor later, I heard the coach say something like "We have to work together..." and the parent didn't speak again. So he shut her up. It was for the wrong reason...not "hey, you're making yourself, your team, and your school look bad," but it was for "hey, make my work day easier." Not that I'd ever have held anything against the coach.

On a subsequent free throw, the coach/co-worker cracked me up by whispering in my ear: "I have to listen to her ass all year!"

The games: uneventful. Ragged, a lot of fouls, but uneventful.

GOOD: I slowed down at the spot, managed blowouts
WORK ON: Slower at table.

NEXT: Has already happened. I had two games today, but didn't get a shot to blog about last night's until now. Bedtime for the boy took precedence.

An idiot in the stands

I was at a high school sporting event recently as a fan. I always forget how icky fans can be, since I'm not focused on them when I work. But this guy at a fairly rich HS took the cake.

The official made a call that he didn't like, and in response, he said something like this:

"I've never liked high school officials in general. They're terrible. You know something I've learned? A lot of them are bus drivers. Bus drivers! I mean it. Like, the one time in high school, I took the [local public transit organization] bus downtown, and the guy driving it was one of the football officials I'd had! I just couldn't believe it. A bus driver!"

I almost want to let this go without comment--the guy looks bad enough as it is--but I can't.

1. He's actually attacking a sports official for making an honest living driving a city bus.
2. He seems to think that a doctor, lawyer, or astrophysicist would make a better official than a butcher or bus driver. I wonder why he thinks this is true.
3. One of the things I like most about HS officiating is it is one of the very few parts of our society where people come together from different social strata and work as a team with a common goal. Some nights I work with a hot-shot lawyer or big-time businessman. Some nights I work with a guy from the toughest part of town who's trying to piece together a living with officiating as one of the pieces to his economic puzzle. And we are forced to work together under stressful circumstances.

Where else does this happen in our society? Not jury duty (the rich tend to get off that). Not in schools, which are racially and economically segregated worse than at any time since Brown vs. Board of Ed. Not in youth league sports, which are also segregated by community.

I honestly can't come up with another place, in my life anyway, where we work together other than as officials.

I think I can rest easy knowing that guy in the stands will reveal his butthead nature to the wrong guy someday, and as a result be grossly overcharged for electrical or mechanical work. And he'll deserve it.

Game Log 4/11/09: Competence

Two summer league games, two blowouts: the first, I believe, was varsity boys; the second more likely sophomores.

I have very few memories of the first game. There was barking from the bench over "a travel right in front of you, and you didn't even call it." The kid sort of shifted his weight as though he shuffled his feet, but the feet stayed down. I went to the barking coach, since he was so near, and said "Do you have a question?" He gave an inadequate and unmemorable response. I said "I'll respond to you if you have questions, but you can't be barking at me."

Turns out that was the ASSISTANT coach. Oops. If I'd have had that straight in my head, I'd have gone to the head coach and had him handle it. But the game was a relative blowout--20 points or so--and mostly cruising. Some minor conditioning problems late, especially in one of those ohmygod four-or-five straight turnover situations, but not bad for 2-person all told.

The second game had several firsts. It was a horrendous blowout from the word go.

First 100-point game. The winners nearly doubled up the losers.
First dunk.
First situation where I could have called basket interference. On a layup, a defender whacked the net and (I think) the ball through the net. The ball went through anyway, so that fact that I froze (as is to be expected, I suppose, for my first call of its sort) had no impact. But I'll be readier for the next one.

Main thing is how damn good I felt about this one. I had a partner who I was totally in sync with. While we didn't switch on all fouls, we did report to the table for all fouls, which gave me an opportunity to think about posture and slowing down. While I wasn't perfect, I was aware, and I think I was improving. That's the first step.

Also, during that second game, there was a moment where everything could have gone into the crapper and didn't. At halftime, when it was clear we had a massive blowout and a frustrated losing team, I said to my partner that we needed to be vigilant about frustration fouls by the losing team.

As we approached 9 minutes left, there was a light push on a breakaway. Not intentional, but time to start looking.

At 8 minutes left, there was a worse one. My partner didn't have the intentional, and I don't think I would have either...just not quite enough. But things were starting to turn. I walked to give the free throws and told everybody to settle down. We wanted it cleaner, we said.

We then called it very tight for about two minutes...got several bits of contact we might otherwise have overlooked. Didn't frustrate anybody, since they were equally on both teams, but got it better.

Losing coach told partner in there that players were complaining about the winning team talking smack. He said we'd listen for it. We didn't hear any.

When winning team knocked an opponent over on a routine foul on the shot, he helped him up. I thanked him for his sportsmanship.

No problems from there. I'm quite proud of our work on this one. It absolutely could have become ugly without us. It didn't.

Losing team gave up its 96th, then 98th point with about a minute left. Winning team, who I don't feel was doing anything to run up the score (although they did run a one-on-one press throughout, but not anything egregious), then wanted to get to a century. Losing coach saw what was happening and kept saying "Hold the ball! Slow it down! Hold up!" He was satisfied to let the clock run out and avoid the embarrassment of giving up 100. But kids were not even remotely listening to him. They were just cranking up shots. Winning team would rebound, and then, with about ten seconds left, with 98, ran the ball downcourt, was pushed, went up and made the shot...but I had vociferously waved it off. "No shot! On the floor!" It was the right call. but it prevented the winning team from getting 98 on that shot. (They did get it when the kid drained both double-bonus free throws.)

Anyway, it felt great. If all summer partners and games were like this one, I'd do more of them. As is, I'll maybe give one weekend a month, mostly to work on slowing down and looking athletic.

THINGS I DID WELL: Game awareness, crew consistency, mostly conditioning, posture and slowing down at the table.
THINGS TO WORK ON: Coach awareness (don't talk to assistant), some conditioning, posture adn slowing down at spot.
NEXT UP: Nothing on the slate, but I'll take any tournaments that come along. Meanwhile, I'll run and walk along a nearby semi-desolate route I've found, looking to see whether anyone's watching and then calling fouls and violations on flowers.

Read this book

-As They See 'Em- by Bruce Weber.

Weber, a New York Times reporter writes a definitive book about professional umpiring. He gets to know a couple of youngsters in the Northwest League and their daily grind, and also gets to know more than a few people at the major league level. He attends the Jim Evans Umpiring Academy although he hasn't yet umpired a game, and then does some games at home in New York (HS, Babe Ruth, and some adult leagues). He really gets at some of the deepest core beliefs of umpires and of officials in general, and looks at what might be some important aspects of their personalities. He also talks to some of the principals for the best and worst calls in recent memory and goes over the recent labor actions by both major league and minor league umps.

If you're interested enough in officiating to be reading this blog, you simply must get a hold of this book. It's insightful, entertaining, and fun. I'm even going to force my wife to read it so she understands some of my, um, personality quirks a little bit better.

Game Log 4/5/09: Three in a row with a running clock

I hate doing summer ball. Too often, it's a situation like today's. We walked in and were told "No one-and-one, just go to two shots at 10 fouls. Nobody's fouling out, and we're not even keeping a book...just the scoreboard."

What a running clock means is that my main goal--to slow the hell down when making calls--runs counter to the spirit of the game I'm in. If I paused, took a breath, got into an athletic position, and then deliberately gave the call, that would mean valuable time ticking off the clock. So it occurred to me quickly that my goal to appear more athletic couldn't be the primary thing I worked on this game.

Instead, I worked on conditioning. Three games is more than I usually do...boys, girls, then boys...so by the second half of that third game, I was dragging pretty hard. But I was only beaten down the floor once (on a steal...would have beaten me no matter what kind of shape I was in). And while fatigue started in impact me just a hair late, I only want two calls back for the entire three games.

So, in playground-quality games (lots of running, a fair number of turnoversJ), I stayed upright and on the case. I'll take that.

THINGS I DID WELL: Stayed up with the action, call selction
THINGS TO WORK ON: Conditioning, can still appear athletic even in a get-the-ball-back-in game
NEXT UP: Another tournament...HS boys on Saturday.

Game Log 3/22/09: All-star game

I do think it's a good sign that I was selected for this game 1 1/2 weeks ago (yeah, I'm late...but nowadays, wife and boy always have legitimate things to do that beat refblogging). Seriously--the dude could have chosen anybody for these games, and he picked me. I honestly think he wanted to see what I could do with the very best (female) athletes from around here.

It went just fine. The key is that it's always a little easier to ref better players. Plus, in an All-Star game, it's always better to let them play a little anyway, and these girls were fine with that. Although I did whistle one walk...stutter-step I didn't think I could ignore.

The coaches were coaches from local small colleges. One did not like a rebound call I had. I had a good angle as T (maybe C) that saw his girl jump into the other girl...she grabbed the ball cleanly in the air, but landed on an opponent enough that I couldn't ignore it. The conversation with the coach went too long. I explained what I had. He said "Well, I had a good angle on it, and she didn't get her." I may have come across as too defensive, saying "I had a great angle, coach." Probably could have let it go, but didn't. Anyhow, there weren't other big problems.

The continuing problem is loosey-goosey mechanics. One of the more experienced guys (although I'm finding that I am rapidly becoming one of the more experienced guys) said that "You call a great game, and you look bad doing it." He then hit me with one of my LEAST favorite phrases: "You just have to want it." I can't stand it when people pass off difficulty learning as a character flaw. I don't do that as a teacher. Anyway, his recommendation was that I call fouls in front of a mirror all summer long. I'll do that. I'll even go for runs and call fouls on everyone in town--fire hydrants, joggers, dogs. But the critical key will be to slow WAY down after tooting my whistle and to "get in an athletic position," as one guy said. That's a great idea. And when I do that in front of a mirror, I don't look half bad.

I think this is a hugely critical next step for me, but anything physical has always been a challenge for me. But this is the summer it happens. It'll start with some weekend tournament games these next couple of weekends. I normally don't work much over the summer, but we could use the money, and I could use the practice looking athletic.

(More to come in my Year In Review post.)

THINGS I DID WELL: Call selection, handled quality athletes
THINGS TO WORK ON: Shorten coach communication, tighten up mechanics
NEXT UP: A HS tourney, 1 girls game and 2 boys, this Sunday. 2-person.

Well, I'll be darned.

Just as I'm finally recovering from my baby-related work stoppage to put together my year-end self-assessment, I get tabbed to do an all-star girls' game on Sunday. The best kids in the county going against each other in a post-State showcase. It mostly looks like it's fun--a 3-point contest at halftime, plus a boys' dunk contest--and in past years, a quick Google search tells me, scores have been very high. But still, my assignor picked me to do the game. I have to take that as a very good sign.

Officials get in free. So I can count on many people telling me how they would have done better. But I suspect my assignor wants to see me run with the creme-de-la-creme under non-pressure conditions before seeing if he can put me on big games next year (including, perhaps, the playoff list?). So I will dust off the shoes and de-gunk the whistle for one more time up the floor.

By popular demand...

...well, because Massref asked, anyway...

meet the boy. Born two weeks ago. Healthy as all get-out and growing like a weed. Mom, son, and dad are all doing fine--as well as we can while sleeping in 2-3 hour chunks.

Baby was, like all babies, legally blind at birth. He now has really good eyes. Of course, this rules out his ever becoming an official.