Basketball Officiating – Dealing With The Emotions Of The Game

Basketball Officiating– Every bit as important to your basketball officiating career as a referee to mastering your own emotions is mastering the emotions of the game. In other words, how you deal with the high emotions of players on the court. This is the very core of basketball officiating. After all, the entire purpose of having referees in any sport is to ensure order in what can easily become chaos. If you want to get into basketball officiating at any level, you will have to master your own emotions and have the necessary people skills to diffuse the high emotions of others.

This is one of the reasons why we refer to our profession as an art. Like any true work of art, professional basketball officiating is completely fluid and in a state of change until the work is completed. No two works of art are exactly alike (nor, in my opinion, should they be.) The same is true on the court, no two games are exactly alike and you must have a clear head, be open to all possibilities that may occur at a given moment, and know how to deal with them the instant that they do.

I know this sounds difficult, but it can be done. You see officials do it successfully all the time, so you can follow their example and know that you can do it too. It’s time to learn how to master basketball officiating.

The Art of Basketball Officiating

The late great martial arts movie star, Bruce Lee, related the art of martial arts to being fluid like water. He said that when water is poured into a cup, it assumes the shape of the cup, pour water into a wine glass, it becomes the shape of the wine glass, pour it into a teapot, it becomes the teapot, and so on. So what does this have to do with basketball officiating?

The art of basketball officiating is the same way. Each player has his own personality and his own psychological eccentricities. there are players who holds a tremendous amount of respect for his teammates, the officials, and even his opponents. Whenever he would argue a call, it was never just to get attention. It was usually for a teammate. With him, or any player who treats others with respect, it usually doesn’t take much to redirect their emotions.

In contrast, more emotionally intense players who play on the same team need a firmer hand (obviously) but also needed to be treated with respect. I was able to do this by empathizing with him because I knew how intensely he liked to play.

These are just two examples of two different types of players who needed to different types of approaches for dealing with their emotions. Again, no two are alike. You can’t assume that the approaches I took will work with players who are like them. You are going to have to know who you’re dealing with on a game-by-game basis. Now it’s time to learn how to succeed in basketball officiating.

Basketball Officiating Success – How To Do It

How do you do this? The answer is simple: preparation. Preparation is the key to success in any endeavor. Bruce Lee was also key on being prepared to face any challenge in the martial arts arena. Another word for preparation is training, and to say that Lee trained hard is to display a flair for the obvious. Lee was a movie actor, not a professional martial arts fighter, yet he knew that his words would mean nothing if he did not practice what he preached. He trained constantly to make sure that if he did ever get into a real fight (which did occasionally happen, as some people felt the need to challenge him on his word) he would be able to adapt to his opponents weaknesses and diffuse them without really hurting them (completely the opposite of his on-screen fighting style.) He did not have a cookie-cutter approach to his opponents. He would always say be like water. In fact, his approach kept him out of way more fights than he ever got into.

You too, as a referee, must be fluid in your approach to dealing with players. They are the containers, of which no two are alike. You are the water. Train and adapt to each of their needs.

The Basketball Officiating Success System gives you entire chapters and audio lessons as to how you can train yourself to adapt to the needs of any player. You’ll learn how to communicate effectively, resolve conflicts (and even prevent them before they start), know when to act, and how to act when the situation calls for it. I’ve got 40 years of basketball officiating experience and can guarantee then any questions you have about basketball officiating, I can answer.

Ready to take action and learn how to adapt to basketball officiating any game regardless of whose playing or what the situation is? Good. Invest in the Basketball Officiating Success System today.