The Proper Mechanics of Refereeing Basketball

Series Summary

In December of 1891, A Canadian by the name of James Naismith, a physical education student and instructor at a local YMCA, was looking for a way to stay fit during the long winter months. Needing to stay indoors, Naismith nailed a peach basket to a ten foot elevated track in the gymnasium and basketball was born. At first the basket retained its bottom, meaning the ball had to be retrieved after every basket, but soon improvements were made and an iron rim and cloth net replaced the wooden peach basket. Basketball continued to evolve over the next century and rose out of obscurity into one of the most popular sports in the world.

In this free video series, our expert Dave Tyler will show you all the violation and penalties in basketball and their respective referee signals. He will show you the proper mechanics of refereeing, how to signal palming, traveling, a hand check, a push, a trip, rim interference, blocking, double dribble, 3 seconds, charging, a technical foul, over and back, and a jump ball. Dave will even show you some minor refereeing duties and their signals like the five second count, the 3 point shot calls, out of bounds plays, and pre-game duties.

Video Transcript

"DAVE TYLER: Okay. Proper mechanics are important in officiating. One of the questions I'm often asked is: Why the numbers are under five? In basketball, you can have no number over five because when a basketball gives the signals for a foul, you only have five fingers. So the highest number you can have in basketball is 55. For example, let's say a foul occurs on the floor over here, what I would do then is come to the scorer's table, get as close as I can at a good proper angle, usually a 45-degree angle, nice and slow with the mechanic. Let's say the foul was on 51, so you'd 51, hold, and then the ball would go out there. Make sure that the scorer's table sees it, as well as both coaches. You want to make sure nobody is standing in front of the scorer's table when you give the mechanics. It's important also to go--you don't want to go fast. You want to go nice and slow. Twenty one, hold, blue ball. Anything else, make sure that if there's a problem at the table, you'll see the table will buzz, hit the buzzer, and then the officials could come over and talk about any foul that occurred if they weren't sure on the number. So proper mechanics: number one, make sure that the table can see and it's clear; number two, take your time when giving the table the foul. For example, let's change the number a bit. Forty three, hold, blue ball."