First Talk, Then T - A Basketball Ref's Diary

Recap, March 25, 2006 - What a difference a day makes

What a day ... just about everything went wrong, so that makes it three in a row.

It began with the drive to the game. I had our evaluator travelling with me, because he is from my town. We met early to arrive about two hours prior to the start of the game. But a construction site on the interstate got in the way of our plan. We needed about 90 minutes to drive a 2 miles distance, because they shut down the whole interstate and everybody had to get on a small backside road. My partner who lives a bit closer to the town where we had our game arrived at the same time at this spot (construction site) as I did with the evaluator. As soon as it was clear that we would be too late to have a decent pregame, we decided to get in one car. So, at the next possible stop we got in his car and had our pregame there (a pleasant 20 miles drive). We arrived at the gym 10 minutes prior to the opening jumpball, changed, said hello and off we were ...

The game ... puhhh, what would you expect? Good teams, good refs, good game? Not this time, and unfortunately it had something to do with the refs :-( We still managed to have everything under control, but it was not what I had expected. I know that my expectations are always very high, but once again I was not happy with my performance and our performance as a team. I don't know if I put too much pressure on myself, now that I had a couple of games in 1st division. Somehow, I expect that every game in 2nd division should be a "piece of cake" now. But that's just not going to happen, because reffing 1st division games doesn't make be a better ref at once. It takes time and I am still young. I think I need to relax.

What did I do well:

• Being in good position to see plays.
  
• Communicate.

Things to improve next time:

• Call selection (do you see a pattern here?)
• Sell a technical foul. I had a brief talk with a player who obviously didn't like what I told him, since he spat on the floor between us before turning around and walking away. Of course, I gave him the T, but in a very calm manner, and nobody knew what it was for. It probably looked strange ... referee and player talk quietly to each other, then player turns around and walks away and the ref now hits him with the T ...
• Don't let talk of players and coaches get to me. I was angry, our late arrival had stressed me out, and that's why I was not calm enough to just ignore some of the comments I got.
  

After the game we had dinner with our coach/evaluator and he told us what he saw (what I just wrote). Then my partner gave us a ride back to my car. When I reached for my keys I couldn't find them. I couldn't believe this was really happening, I had lost my keys (appartment, car, workplace, just every key I use) either in the gym, or in the restaurant. Maybe on the parking lot ... It was a quarter past midnight, we were 200 miles away from home and I couldn't start my car! My partner gave us a ride to the international airport at his home town where we hoped to find a car rental that would be open 24-7. But it wasn't meant to be. So he drove us all the way back home. We arrived at 3.30 am! Of course, now he had to go back 200 miles. But, after thinking it over I said I would invite him to sleep at my house for a couple of hours and have breakfast with me and my family before going back. It would have been to dangerous to drive back alone and as tired as he must have been by now. He gladly accepted and stayed. On Sunday morning after breakfast he drove back. Now I had to get my car. Fortunately my sister was in town to visit my parents this weekend, and she had to go back home on the same highway I used the day before. So I could go with her and she dropped me off at my car. Having the car back I drove the last 20 miles to the town where we had worked the game and had dinner. I talked to the people who work there but nobody had found my keys. I even walked around the parking lot by the gym, but I didn't find them.

What's next: a women's play-off game ... didn't have any women's games for a while! Make new keys for appartment, car, workplace ...

posted by BBallRef @ 3/28/2006 01:00:00 AM