Rndballref
20 Years Experience
Chicago, IL
Male, 60
For twenty years I officiated high school, AAU and park district basketball games, retiring recently. For a few officiating is the focus of their occupation, while for most working as an umpire or basketball referee is an avocation. I started ref'ing to earn beer money during college, but it became a great way to stay connected to the best sports game in the universe. As a spinoff, I wrote a sports-thriller novel loosely based on my referee experiences titled, Advantage Disadvantage
I have officiated some house leagues, summer high school leagues and travelling basketball tourneys where a shooting foul is awarded 1 point and the ball, and a common foul after 7 team fouls also gets 1 point + ball. At one point in time there was a proposal in college ball that a team would have the option of shooting free throws OR the ball. Doesn't seem like anyone talks about that anymore. I think the pros like close games and slowing the game down with fouls compresses the score, but those last 2 minutes sometimes takes 20 minutes.
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Like most things in life it is not difficult to be a referee. However, it is very hard to be a good referee. Here are some of the reasons: 1) You need to study the rule book - it takes a long time to really understand and internalize them, 2) once the rules are understood it takes a long time to decide which rules should not be enforced at which levels/situations, 3) since there is a learning curve, you have to make a big commitment to it before you can be well compensated, 4) even if you develop into a good referee, you have to be lucky enough to be "discovered" and/or mentored by people in a position to help and promote you, and finally you have to have a different occupation that allows you spend your time investing in ref'ing. Oh yeah, you also need thick skin.
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Rule 7 in the NFHS rule book is the chapter on Out of Bounds and The Throw In. Section 1, Article 2b states, "The ball is out of bounds when it passes over a rectangular backboard. By excluding fan shaped backboards it means a ball passing over fan shaped is NOT out of bounds.
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If A is standing out of bounds, and a ball that was in bounds touches him before hitting the floor out of bounds, A is considered to have caused the ball to go out of bounds.
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Bouncer
How often would you find yourself in real danger?
Antiques Dealer
What do real antiques dealers think of the Antiques Roadshow reality show?
Parcel Delivery Mailman
Does labeling a package "fragile" actually lead to you handling it with more care?
Let's suppose that a player takes two hands on top of the ball and pushes it to the ground - double dribble. You see this sometimes when a player falls and use the ball to break the fall. What if a player takes one hand and pushes the ball to the floor ? That is an interrupted dribble until the player picks it up, or can continue the dribble with one hand (like the Globetrotters). If instead, he picks up the ball, he has used up the dribble and must pass or shoot from there.
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Simple answer: no. So again (Advantage Disadvantage), if the post player is setting up down low and swatting the defender's hands and they are in a minor way pushing or leaning on each other, then I am ignoring it or telling them hands off. But as soon as the ball is delivered to the post, and he received it because he swatted the defender's hands away from a legal guarding position, then I am calling an offensive foul.
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I believe that is a made up rule. The only way to construe a violation would be to consider it unsportsmanlike, but that is a stretch. The way to handle it is if there is a dead ball after the team was counting approach the coach and ask if the coach considers counting in that way sporting. Maybe he will stop them, but as a ref I would not call a foul.
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