purple motes

Some basketball officials report a foul as a "hack." Out of due respect to hackers, I report this foul as "on the arm."

Hacking can be a useful and entirely legitimate activity.

Offer Comments

I passed my National Federation of State High School Associations' examination for basketball officials. That makes me a registered Virginia High School League basketball official. Part of the skill of officiating is being able to take abuse from fans, players, coaches, and owners, and still make good calls and just enforce the rules. Looking forward to additional regulatory practice.

2 Comments

At a recent basketball officials' training session, one of our superb association officials showed us a game video of a difficult situation. A white-team player shoots and misses, and the rebounding scuffle knocks the ball immediately out of bounds. The ref covering the shooter whistles in the midst of fans screaming for a foul on the aggressive blue-team defender. The ref on the other side has coverage of the relevant out-of-bounds line, and signals white ball. He attempts to check if the other ref had some other call. The blue-team coach goes ballistic.

The resulting situation: the blue-team coach, screaming at the ref, is standing where the thrown-in should be administered. The ref who has to administer the throw-in is not certain of the other ref's call. The crowd is going wild, and the players are starting to fall out of game attention.

At this point, our trainer stopped the video and asked us what we would do. The administering ref could try to get the coach to move. Either ref could call a technical foul on the coach. The referees could huddle to discuss the situation.

As an experienced bureaucrat, I suggested calling a refs' meeting.

Regulators with more wisdom know better. The trainer continued the video of the experienced refs in this difficult situation. The ref responsible for the out-of-bounds call steps up and administers a white thrown-in as near to the out-of-bounds point as is feasible given the position of the screaming blue-team coach. The ball becomes live.

The players play. The coach stops yelling at the referee and starts following play. The crowd stops yelling at the refs and starts watching play. The game is on. And, as everyone implicitly understands, it isn't about the referees.

3 Comments

From the NFHS Basketball Preseason Guide 2007-08:

"In the past, a common interpretation has been that any touching of a dribble by a defender ended the dribble," said Mary Struckhoff, NFHS assistant director and editor of the NFHS rules book. "However, the language in our rules implied that the touching had to be by the hand and had to be intentional. The change in language [of the official rule] provides consistency with the current enforcement of the rule."

Participants in rapidly evolving regulated industries would be wise to ponder the above statement.

Offer Comments

To be certified to referee nine-year old girls and boys basketball in a local league, I took a rules exam with about 40 other applicants. Most of them were 12-14 year-old kids.

The exams were collected and graded on the spot. The names of persons who passed were then called out. One by one the youngsters got up, picked up their newly issued referee's whistle, and left (usually with their parents). I was left sitting alone at a table, with just a few other kids spread around the cafeteria.

I failed. I didn't realize there were special rules for this particular children's league, so I hadn't learned them. This is probably the first exam I have ever failed. With the bonus feature of public humiliation in front of children. Well, at least I didn't cry.

And I didn't give up. I passed that exam on the second try. Now I've passed another exam that qualifies me to referee recreational basketball for older children.

Studying the rules of basketball has given me new appreciation for regulation. Consider this sentence from Rule 7-6-1:

The throw-in pass shall touch another player (inbounds or out of bounds) on the court before going out of bounds untouched.

I doubt that the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations has any short text as conceptually convoluted as this.

Not only golf, but also basketball, clearly needs help from government regulators.

Offer Comments

Persons live in specific places. Citizen journalism potentially can support local events and build community. I've tried to make some contribution here, here, here, and here.

Below I document one of my failures.

The rules for citizen journalism aren't clear. Many organizations need to think about such rules. The challenge, it seems to me, is to recognize fears, to address them rationally, and to demonstrate the additional value that new media possibilities offer. That's a job for everyone.

Title: NBB Basketball Highlights
Posted: Tuesday, January 09th 2007, about 10:45 pm

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming on the mind-boggling media transformations to bring you NBB Basketball Highlights. With networked journalism, you're in the game.

[video posted here]

From: Douglas Galbi
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 10:51 PM
To: [third grade girls basketball coordinator]
Cc: [league commissioner]
Subject: basketball video

Dear [third grade girls basketball coordinator],

I brought my video camera to last Saturday's [team 1] v [team 2] game (my first ref assignment) and ask the mother of my co-ref to shoot some video. I then put together a brief news report that I hope others might enjoy and perhaps find funny. The news video is available on my blog at
http://purplemotes.net/2007/01/09/nbb-basketball-highlights/

I'm aware of the importance of on-line safety. The video does not include any names of participants, does not identify the place of the event, nor the league. Because the video resolution is low, only persons familiar with the players and their numbers are likely to be able to recognize players from the video. In addition, while the video is served through YouTube to my website, the video is not available through the YouTube website (I've set it up as a "private" video). It can be viewed only on my blog. I think that the video does not present any risk to the children. But if you have any concern about the video, please let me know.

A whole new world of media is upon us. I think it can be used for good.

Sincerely,
Douglas Galbi
1'st year ref

Subject: RE: basketball video
From: [league commissioner]
Date: 1/10/2007 6:16 PM
To: Douglas Galbi

Douglas,

My name is [league commisioner] and I am the commissioner of [league]. I really appreciate you sending your note but I have to say, I am uncomfortable with you videotaping our games. I know they are only available through your blog but it still makes me extremely uncomfortable. If you would please remove it, I would appreciate it. Anyone can get on your blog and we would need permission from all of the parents of all the kids on the video for me to be OK with you posting it.

Thank you and I appreciate your cooperation.

[league commissioner]

Subject: Re: basketball video
From: Douglas Galbi
Date: 1/10/2007 7:10 PM
To: [league commissioner]

[league commissioner],

Thanks for your reply. I've deleted the video (and the blog post).

Perhaps for next season, you and the Board of Directors might consider how [league] could take advantage of possibilities for non-traditional reporting, with due concern for safety and consent. With respect to consent, it seems to me that timely news reporting cannot require the consent of the persons who are the subject of the story. That would make such reporting impossible. typically community sports events include in the liability weaver a proviso for consent to use of images of persons participating in the event. Reporters of course are not party to such a waiver. My understanding is that such waivers cover publicity photos/videos that the organizers of the event use to promote future such events.

I'm impressed with the excellent organization of [league], and I look forward to working further as a referee.

Sincerely,
Douglas

2 Comments

Offer Comments