The D-III Super Camp Experience

"Getting The Call Right" night after night at any level, demands that the referee continuously improve his/her skills on the court. Improving skill generally involves many things: a desire to improve, an effort to improve, and realistic feedback about performance, are just a few of the ingredients needed. As stated previously in this blog, seeking out experiences that offer excellent opportunities to improve are imperative.

The D-III Super Camp run by Wayne Samford, Gregg Bennett, and Dennis Ashcraft at the University of Richmond is an experience that offers the participant an excellent opportunity for growth as a basketball official. The camp's stated mission: "To promote basketball officiating excellence on all levels of competition by providing quality instruction and preserving the integrity of the game," is accomplished through a variety of experiences both on and off the court.

The 2011 camp was held at the University of Richmond in conjunction with coach Chris Mooney's basketball team camp. The site is an excellent facility for a referee clinic. The camp uses several floors to accomplish the games. There are two buildings that hold the floors; the first is the Robins Center-site of the home games for the University of Richmond Spiders, and the Weinstein Center-a building dedicated to student/adult health and wellness.

The student residence hall facilities house the participants, both referees and campers alike. The rooms would be typical of student housing for a college or university. Overall the cleanliness and functionality were acceptable. The rooms are air conditioned quite well, something anyone could appreciate in Richmond, VA in June.

You will find a well appointed dining hall arrangement on campus at your disposal. Each meal has a plethora of offerings from simple to more exotic. The "mushroom stroganoff" was especially good for an industrial type food application.

The camp will start with meetings on the night before the basketball begins. Each camp session begins with an hour of classroom instruction before heading to the floor to officiate the games. The clinicians, speakers, and instructors at the camp are of exceptional note. Wayne and Gregg are no strangers to some of the top current and past officiating talent. Perspectives are offered from across a wide array of professional (NBA), and college experience.

Once the official reaches the floor, each game is observed by a clinician. Each referee is assigned a three person crew for an entire game each session. The games use a running clock, with times ranging from 20 to 15 minutes per half. Each clinician provides specific feedback to referees during and after each game. In the Robins Center, recording devices were used on both floors providing each official an opportunity to obtain valuable DVD recordings of their performance in certain games.

One of the teaching tools made available is the ability to review your DVD with a clinician. You are taught how to break down your performance looking at critical indicators such as; correct call, incorrect call, correct no call and incorrect no call. You are taught how to look at your performance on DVD much the same way that Division 1 officials and supervisor's look at games and officiating.

The clinicians as well as Gregg, Wayne, and Dennis are approachable. Serious, and even the not so serious questions are addressed and met with a care and concern for the official that is rumored to be rare at other such events. The participants get the impression that the whole experience is designed to help them improve. In fact, you will improve. Unless you show up brain dead, and if you are paying attention you are going to hear, see, or do something that will improve your game.

The overall experience is quite the bargain. In regards, to price, the camp is probably in the middle of the road as far as these things go. But, the learning and experience far exceeds the cost. Depending on where you are in your career, this camp can offer you the type of experience that will propel you to a new understanding of 3 person mechanics, as well as a new level of performance on the floor.

Basketball officials who are serious about improving their own abilities on the floor must look for experiences and opportunities for feedback that point them in that direction. This camp is an excellent camp to consider for both the novice as well as more accomplished high school referees. You will be challenged to look at what you are doing on the floor in ways that help you see improvements that can be made which will immediately increase your skill and confidence on the floor.

One last word of advice-if you go to this camp, go with the intent and attitude to learn. Put yourself in a place to accept feedback and want to make helpful adjustments. The leaders of the camp will tell you that this is a teaching camp. One thing you will certainly see quickly in this experience is where the avocation is going in regards to accountability for correct and incorrect calls. Your eyes will open to where this world of officiating has moved. You will also pick up visions of where the avocation will be going in the coming seasons. All of which if you use the information appropriately will help you to "Get The Call Right!"

When Does Your Season End?

So, you had a great season! The fall and winter has come and gone. Game assignments were received, acknowledged, you communicated with your partner/s, you called the game and then maybe even enjoyed an adult beverage in the spirit of good referee collegiality. You have cleaned your uniforms, checked your equipment, and stored it away. The focus shifts to the spring, the summer, vacations and all that those nice hot months can bring. Basketball is over!

Or is it?

The idea that the work of becoming a better referee and getting the call right (a reason this blog exists) is somehow contained to a short time span in any given year, is an idea I want to challenge you to ponder seriously about. Think about it; is getting better at basketball officiating really equivalent to time? Can we as officials really "sit" around, put our uniforms on a shelf for long periods of time during the year, and then really expect to be getting better the next season? I mean, that idea might work for a good bottle of wine, or a great single malt, but for what we do-it's not.

So much of what we do to get better, or what good officials do to improve themselves does not occur during the "season." Things change over time. The most important "thing" in what changes is us. I know most of us, especially baby boomers, don't want to acknowledge it, but every year we get older. Our bodies change. Kids change. When I went to high school and college our guards were under six feet tall. The big colleges had guards over six feet tall. Today-it is not unusual at some high school and many college levels to see kids over six feet five or more handling the ball up the floor with skill and quickness. The idea that our avocation is something we can put on a shelf, and then put on the uniform and perform at the same level we ended the previous season is simply gone. The speed of the game is changing, the kids are changing, we are changing. We as officials need to have a longer, deeper view of the game and ourselves.

Summers offer us so much in the way of opportunities to get better. There are games available to be called. And, there are many officiating camps and clinics one can seek out and attend. One source you are aware of is your Director of Assignments. These men and women are keeping up with what is going on, and many are clinicians and participants in camps themselves. The Internet is an excellent place to find many ideas of what is available on a national, and regional level-and can direct you to what is going on at higher levels especially division one, two and three.

My suggestion to you is; if you want to get better, and you have a desire to get the calls right, spend time during the "off" season to invest in yourself, your avocation and the game. Save up some of those games fees, sign up and attend a clinic near you. And, if you really want to move up, you really do at some time have to attend camps/clinics at the level you aspire to work.

If you attend a clinic or a camp, you will usually have a multi faceted learning experience. Good clinics today will offer classroom instruction, on floor critiques by clinicians, and in some cases video tape instruction. It is truly a kinesthetic learning experience-one that gets information into your brain through a variety of sensory receptors. You will see, hear, feel-physically experience new and familiar information.

What you do in the clinic, and how you receive/learn the information is just as important as getting on a floor and working a game. Listening, thinking about, processing and responding to what you are told and hear is key to improving. Here are some suggestions on some of those processes.

Listening is a skill. We many times do not think about it. Unless you have ever lost your hearing for some time, or had it in some way impeded or restricted most of us go through out our day really "hearing" very little of what sounds are made around us. What I am really talking about is what we recognize hearing. For example, the next time you are out on a summer night, slow down and really focus on what you hear. Get quiet, close your eyes, then let your hearing sense take over for a few minutes. You will be amazed at what you become aware of hearing.

Many clinicians have made remarks to me about listening. And what they are referring to of course is, they wonder if what they said to you is going to make a difference in your on floor performance. I would submit, that the first hurdle I have to get through is making sure I am hearing what is being said. That is not so easy. All of us have a tendency to wash what we hear through many filters; what we think we know, our experience, our reading a rule/case book, our opinion of ourselves. And so we listen and we immediately interpret what we hear and get ideas about what is being said. Many times we really do miss what the clinician was saying.

Here is an example I am sure most of us should be familiar with: you need to move to improve. How many of you have heard that? OK, many of us. What does that mean? Now, just as many of you who are reading this piece will have an interpretation of what that means. And, many of you will get it right I am sure, but think about how many ways there is to describe what it means. Most of us would describe it using different words. Which way would we move? In relationship to what? The ball? The players? The competitive match-up? Here are some others you are familiar with and will illustrate the point: improve your angles; see through the play; close down on the shot. The point is, there is more to what you hear and you may "miss" what the person is saying.

I make this suggestion to myself and to the reader: become adept at using "the Pause!" In sales training and leadership Bryan Tracy is known as an expert. The following brief discussions are based on his ideas of using the pause.

There are really three benefits to the pause. The first is that you avoid the risk of interrupting the person speaking. Have you ever been to a clinic, and during a timeout a clinician calls the crew over to make an observation/comment and then listen to a crew member talk over the clinician. What did you get from that? Many people and personalities today have this need to express themselves so others will see how much they know. I would submit to you, if you pay money to go get advice from a clinician about your performance-you probably should not interrupt him/her when they are giving you what you paid for.

The second benefit of the pause, is that your silence tells the clinician that you are giving careful consideration to what he/she said. Take a look at the people who are moving up in game assignments, and levels. I just bet you that the people moving them up have a confidence when they say something the person is hearing them.

The third benefit of the pause, is that you will actually hear and understand what was just said to you. The more time you take to reflect upon what has just been said, the more conscious you will be of the real meaning. You will be more alert to how words can connect with other things you know about the game/experience and what has just been said to you.

Hopefully the reader has had some good information to digest as you seek out good experiences this summer. I urge you to get out there, get involved in some clinics, and games. You will be amazed at the long term benefits of keeping up with avocation. You will feel better physically by being active on the floor, will be more in tune with the game and the how each year it evolves. And, each experience you have will hopefully help you to get the call right!

The Value of a Mentor

My opinion is we all have heroes! Many of us from our early childhood years had individuals we looked up to for various reasons. Whether that individual was real, or imagined, we were influenced to one degree or another by the actions we saw, words we heard or read.



In our officiating careers, those of us who look at our efforts as an avocation, it is a good idea to develop and maintain friendships with other more experienced referees, or at least other referees who have behaviors on the floor we perceive as instructive.



People who are serious about getting better night in and night out on the floor, are usually those who have immersed themselves in a positive mental attitude, and are students of the game and the mechanics of officiating. Finding and having mentors around you that can offer you useful advice and instructions is all part of getting better and getting the calls right.



This idea of having a mentor can be as simple as watching and seeing someone who does something well on the floor, and then you trying to include that in your game. You likely would want to have some mentoring from higher level and well regarded names as well. But, if you are struggling to get to someone like that, observing different crews across the spectrum of competition you aspire to offers you growth.



As an example, some time ago, I worked in a crew with someone that was influential for me. Candidly, this official did not have many more years ahead of my own. But, sometime back I had watched him in several locations, and was impressed with what I will call his "smoothness" on the floor. No matter what the situation called for he moved with purpose and with a flow that caught my eye. His mechanics, professionalism, and regard for players and coaches all were presented with a crispness that let a casual observer know he knew what was going on.



After the game, while walking to the car, we were talking and saying our farewells, when he made the statement, "Hey-you really looked good out there tonight...." What he did not know at the time was that some of what I was doing on the floor, were behaviors he (along with others like him) had influenced.



Getting the calls right, each and every night and at any level, starts with the simplest of rubrics: know the rules, know your mechanics, study the rules, rehearse your mechanics, see all the plays you can possibly see, begin always with a positive mental attitude, and listen to others that have been there and done well. If you have a desire to be encouraged by a mentor, then ask questions, show interest, listen and implement good advice-and the relationships will come.

The Camera, The Court, and You

Last year I had the opportunity to attend a local referee clinic where extensive use of video was used as a learning tool. Each night the leadership would discuss a different chapter of the rule book, then spend almost an hour watching selected videos of high school officials working local games. I found the format quite effective. Along with the excellent critiques, and suggestions to get better, there were the usual quips and well intentioned light hearted comments. One of those comments stuck with me and I have recently found it to be helpful, "the camera doesn't lie!"

Many readers of this blog, will well remember our local association having invited Bryan Brunette, a well regarded NCAA Division 1 official, to speak at our local clinique in Winston-Salem, NC. Bryan's short speech was right on target. One of the suggestions that he made in response to a question about officials getting better, was to watch yourself on tape.

Sometime ago, I had the opportunity to watch myself on tape, working a local junior varsity game in a two-man crew. As I watched the tape I was reminded of the statement, "the camera doesn't lie!" I will just say it was "an eye opening experience."

In keeping with the goal of this blog-Get The Call Right-I wanted to offer the reader some input and encouragement around the use of video training. For some years now I have been working professionally in adult training, sales and sales management. I have long been familiar with the highly useful benefits of video learning/training. It is an opinion, but a learned one that is supported by literature in performance effectiveness training, that targeted use of video training, and in particular-videos of yourself-is a "must have" in reaching higher performance levels. It is in this regard that I offer the reader some encouragement around this idea.

First of all, I would hope that every official has the desire deep inside him or her to improve what they are doing on the court. The "hunger" to get better each and every night out on the floor is the absolute minimum starting place to reach another level. "Your attitude determines your altitude," (a common sound bite in sales), is so true. Each official determines every night out, what kind of game he/she will have, before ever reaching the floor. Determine that you want to get better.

Next, make a point to get someone to help you get on "tape" at at least one of your games. It does not matter what level you are working for this exercise. That is the beautiful thing in this business-you can look as good or as bad no matter what gym, and what age your are calling. Try to make sure that the camera is on you in a way that gets your whole body in the frame. Getting too close on film is not that much to your advantage-remember the camera "adds ten pounds" and some of us really do not need that. Seriously though, the frame needs to include enough of the court so that you can see and critique things like positioning, closing-down, angle, etc.

Do not worry about being "aware" of the camera. Work the game. Do what you do. Most of the time this will take care of itself. If your games are like my games, you really do not have the luxury of worrying about yourself. The players and especially the coaches will make sure you come back to reality quickly.

Here are some suggestions for your post-game review: first, watch the video from start to finish without taking notes or looking at anything specific. This will be very informative for you. Do not be afraid to laugh, yell, or even cry at what you see. All of us in some ways take ourselves way to seriously, and getting the whole picture first will serve to enhance your learning later. Second, watch the tape a second time looking for the obvious things you want to work on. When being observed by your assignor or a scout for a higher level they will look at many things you can look at on the tape-your appearance, your hustle, your professionalism, your communication to coaches, players, and reporting to the table. You should also be able to observe your position on the floor, whether you move to improve, and your reporting mechanics. If you are lucky, you may even be able to hear your voice if you are prone to using that on the floor. Third, make a short list of things you want to watch for and improve. Watch the video a third time looking for examples of this short list. Be honest with what you see. If you like something make a note, if you see something that needs work list that as well.

Looking for specific behaviors, mechanics, or positions is a proven technique in this type of training. You may even want to keep tally marks for certain behaviors you repeat on the floor. This type of review can help you quickly identify strengths and weaknesses.

Now, take the courageous step. Honestly develop a list of things you did well, and things you want to improve. Then, with intent, go practice or look up what you need to be doing before you go to the next game. Take a short list to the game in your bag. Remind yourself in the car before you go in of the things you really want to work on that night. Work your next game or games with intent and focus on what is on your list. Practice things in the mirror until they become a habit or second nature to you.

If possible, get back on tape after a few weeks or games. Enjoy looking at your improvements. Go back through the above process striving to get better.

And as always, work to-Get The Call Right!