Game Log 2/5/09: Not quite there.
I'm not sure why I never quite got my brain around tonight's games. Some of it was the weirdness of the first game: no fouls in the first six minutes, dull throwing-the-ball-around offenses, and not much going on...until suddenly they started beating the snot out of each other. Some of it was the way that the Varsity game went...two chirpy coaches. Some of it was that, when I said "Guys, I've about had enough out of the Red coach," they said "Nah, she's just coaching hard," and I decided to honor crew integrity by letting her continue to shout and gesticulate. Some of it is that I then had to warn White's coach, who hopped up and down when he felt his girl was jumped on in a loose-ball-on-the-floor situation (I obviously didn't have that or I would have called it...but I may have been too close to the play).
I don't know. I'm not blaming my partners--it's my job to work with them--but I didn't feel like my personality meshed with one of them, who liked extended conversations with coaches and joking with a lot of people (fans, coaches, players). It's not that he didn't take the game seriously--he did--but it didn't feel -businesslike- to me, especially when we went to the coaches for our pre-game quick chats. I guess I didn't feel 100% comfortable telling him I wanted things my way, but dammit, I was the R...I needed to be a little more take-charge. But he sort of dominated.
I don't think I want any calls back (save the aforementioned loose-ball jump if I missed it). But I wasn't mentally there tonight for this big 3rd-place vs. 2nd-place game. I won't dwell on it...I'll just look forward to the next one, which will go better.
THINGS I DID WELL: Call selection, off-ball calls
THINGS TO WORK ON: Comfort, leadership
NEXT UP: I have a week away now due to work commitments. Thursday night I have 2nd place against 1st place! But it's not as big a game as this one, actually, since 1st place is light-years ahead of 2nd and will probably have clinched by then, and will likely cruise to its usual 30-point victory. Tonight's game was better.
1 Comments:
That's a very difficult situation, to work with people with whom you simply don't feel comfortable. I'm familiar with most of the guys I ref by this point in my career and that's a big help.
At camp one time ("This one time. . . at ref camp. . ."), I worked a 3-whistle game with 2 guys and we didn't mesh AT ALL. It was a horrible experience. We had a terrible game. I felt like a fish out of water and had no way to get things back to normalcy. Next day, I talked to a clinician about what to do in a game like that and, in a nutshell, he said that you go straight back to basics. Referee your primary, get the calls that you need to get (especially the OBVIOUS ones) and let the other guys sort out their own stuff.
I don't think being more assertive as the R would've helped the situation. What are you going to say? "Hey guys, you're looking really unprofessional." Yeah, that'll help crew dynamics!! :-D Maybe you could've made a comment about focusing more on the floor, instead of talking with the coach and fans; but I don't think you could go much farther than that. JMO.
As for the coach situation -- whack away. If the coach is bothering you, then it doesn't matter if she's bothering the other guys. If she's distracting your attention from the game, she needs to be dealt with, period.
Easy for me to say from way out here, but I think in the long run, you gain respect and control the game better by dealing with "coaching" nonsense directly. That might not always mean a T, but it sounds like in your case, you thought you might have liked to give her one.
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