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!
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