Great Moments in Youth Sports

About one-third or halfway through each season, we must take time to reflect on why we encourage our youth to take part in sports. My commitment to officiating comes from my personal passion for “age-appropriate youth sports experiences”. Youth sports create many “teachable moments”. Modeling good sporting behavior while teaching the intricacies [...]

Block/Charge — Same Rule for NF and NCAA?

Often I wonder why high school and college officials call the block/charge so differently. I watched many great, entertaining March Madness games seeing a consistent difference in the interpretation of the screening rule (the rule behind block/charge decisions).
I can accept that the superb, athletic ability of these athletes requires a slightly different interpretation. [...]

Polling Booth–5 Questions

1. How many of you think that the block/charge call has become considerably easier in the past 3-5 years? If so, what do you think caused this change?
2. How many illegal screens might you, or another for that matter, miss (or decide not to call) during the last physical game that you officiated? [...]

Happy Holidays Fellow Gray & Black Zebras!

Most of us truly love our opportunity to be an integral part of school-sanctioned basketball contests. Remember that our involvement, when done properly and to the best of our abilities, teaches and upholds the integrity of this game played by our local student-athletes. We are teachers and we are doing very well. [...]

Arbiter Adds New Feature

Thanks to a new partnership between NASO (National Association of Sports Officials), Referee Magazine, and TheArbiter.net, you can read general or sport-specific officiating content. All you have to do is scroll down to the bottom of your TheArbiter.net page and click on the MyReferee box. MyReferee opens up its Front Page right [...]

Why Coaches May Have Difficulty Understanding Some Rulings

After working my first game or two this year, I was quickly reminded that coaches often try to help us officiate. If they only knew that their help is distracting and might make some of us miss the next call, they might choose to focus more on their coaching. That is a topic [...]