Another season over and done with, and with it comes the summer ball and summer camps we all know and love. For me, I attended the first huge camp of my life, the WCC Women’s officials camp where I was once again shown that I have a lot to learn as an official. It took place in Seattle at the University of Washington, three-person mechanics (which is rather foreign to me coming from Oregon) with some very reputable evaluators from the women’s college game.
My first game went to TRIPLE OVERTIME!!!! What the f…? I had a partner who was rather green and another who was spectacular. She held us together like glue, was informative to me and gave me hell when I needed it to keep us all on the same page. I saved my worst game for last, which was wonderfully on the main floor of the university in front of most of the officials and evaluators. I messed it up! I blew one call so badly, letting an in-bounder run the baseline when there was no made basket. DOAH! Then compounded it by calling a technical foul on the assistant coach for belittling my abilities to officiate even after I admitted I made a mistake. No matter, he had it coming from the first half.
In that game I blew that call because I had my head swimming with too many things that I had learned during the two previous days. The camp was amazing, but I put too much emphasis on getting everything perfect when I knew damn well that I was far from it. This is just the first step of learning the college game, learning the women’s game too since most of my experience is with men and boys.
I think I held it together better during my first game of that camp during the triple OT. I communicated well with my partners, with the coaches and the players. I felt so comfortable during that game and I had no real clue of what I was doing out there for the right mechanics. That makes me laugh my ass off; I just could not believe how much I really did suck during my final game as opposed to my first of the camp. I put a lot of mental pressure on myself during that game, having one evaluator look at me from Canada West CIS(formerly CIAU) and three from NCAA Division I. I had bad judgment, not holding my whistle on advantage/disadvantage calls and a disputed travel that on the replay showed I nailed it LIVE.
Today I called an old friend who kept me in officiating when I was thinking about leaving it. Tom Spitznagel, he officiates on the men’s side of the WCC and PAC10 NCAA DI. He instilled in me a lot of confidence that was nowhere to be seen two years ago, I had no personality on the court back then; I just looked pissed-off to be out there. Now I turn back to him to try to figure out where I need to go to learn the 3-person game and where I need to go to gain the exposure. To me, men and women’s basketball is very different to switch back and forth from. I tend to let women beat up on each other like I do with the men, and I realized after watching some tape that I need to figure out which side I need to concentrate on. I would say questions are prominently in my mind now that needed to be there a while ago, and perhaps now I can figure out a path or direction with a little help from my friends.
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