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Every Game Can Be Your Best Game

A young, motivated and talented official was assigned as the referee in a college D-I highly contested conference game. The two assistant referees were seasoned veterans who have officiated...

A Guide to Enforcing the Three-Second Violation

If there is one rule many officials are loath to enforce, it seems to be the three-second violation. For them, ruling a three-second violation carries the...

7 Reasons Why Communication With Your Partner Pays Off

8The words “requires excellent communication skills” are part of virtually every job description in today’s market, to the point where they’ve become meaningless jargon....

Calm on Broken Plays

Coaches, players and fans are allowed to panic when a play goes awry. Officials, on the other hand, must react to broken plays as if they're routine...

Tactical Restart Response

Restart management is difficult enough without considering the various ways that defenders could seek to play psychological tricks on both their opponents and the referee. Given that defenders are...

4 Questions a Referee Never Wants to Ask

There are four questions that no referee wants to ask when a foul has been called. That’s because they should have been asked and answered by the calling...

No Autosave On Out-of-Bounds

One of the great things about being a basketball official is having to make quick and instantaneous decisions on many different types of plays that are happening at...

Deep Official A Key Crew Member

Back judges are often undervalued in a crew of five. Perhaps that stems from the many prep teams that run the ball much more often than pass...

Stay Home in Primary

Supervisors want officials to master the fundamentals, creating good habits and developing a consistency to their game — characteristics shared among the elite in...