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Phillip James is in his 6th year of
officiating high school basketball and his first year of officiating women’s
community college basketball. He has
attended many officiating camps including SOWB, Can-Am, |
Being The Best Official That You Can Be
Every off-season, after the
state tournaments are over and everyone has received their paycheck, there is
one event that captures the interest of every official. One thing that happens
that gives us a chance to think about the previous season and look forward to
next season. That is the day that the ratings come out. Everyone wants to see
if they advanced in the ratings since the previous year and everyone hopes that
they make a move towards the top. It is
true that ratings aren’t the most important thing in the world, but we should
always be working to make ourselves better officials and, in becoming better,
we hope to also move ourselves up the ladder.
There are several things an official
can do to help that move and become the best ref possible.
Elevating your game:
If you are not getting better, you are getting
worse in comparison to other officials and in comparison to the game of
basketball. You can never stay the same because other officials are improving
and the athletes that play the game are becoming bigger, better and faster.
Always have something that
you want to work on every game, even in the off-season. It doesn’t matter what it is, just work on a
particular aspect of your game.
Mechanics, louder voice, positioning, anything that you think needs
improvement will work. You can even tell your partner(s) or other officials
watching the game and have them observe what you are working on.
Another way to improve in the
off-season is to attend at least one officiating camp. Camps are a great way to improve your
game. That is exactly what they are
intended to do and you will always learn several things to improve your game at
camp.
When you have a night off
during the regular season, go watch a game that is being called by officials
that you respect. If you observe
something new that you like, try it for yourself in your next game. If there is something you don’t like, think
about your own officiating game and make sure that you don’t do the same thing.
Be receptive to feedback: Make sure you
are always receptive to feedback you get from veteran officials or camp
clinicians. If you give excuses or reply
to their comments with “yeah but”, you will notice that you won’t get any
feedback anymore. Once you get a
reputation of being someone who doesn’t want to improve, good luck becoming a
better official. No matter where you
want your officiating career to take you, having a good attitude will take you
a long way and will make other officials want to help you. It is amazing how
much your personality will affect your career. It’s just a fact of life, people
would rather be around positive individuals with a good attitude.
Have someone to talk to: It is always
good to talk about games and situations with a fellow official. Find someone, or a group of people, that you
like as an official and bounce ideas off them.
Talk about your weird game situations and find out how they would have
handled them. Many officials utilize
e-mail to communicate about game situations and bounce things off of each other
and that works great too. It is also a
good idea to find a mentor. Choose
someone that is at a higher level than you are. Watch their games and have them
watch your games. It is much easier to move up when you have someone helping
you than it is to try and go it alone. Don’t be afraid to ask because most
officials want to see other officials improve and are willing to help. It makes
our crews better and it makes us a stronger association.
The players are getting
better every year and officials need to keep raising the bar as well. No matter what you want out of your
officiating career, you should want to do your best for the players, your
partners, and yourself.