It’s almost time for Santa to spread some Christmas cheer. Here are some gifts for those involved with basketball in Maine.
Assigners of officials: More officials to assign to games
Athletic administrators: A list of 25 officials to work their home/away games
Basketball Commission members: Schools vote to use three officials for all regular season games
Basketball commissioner: All five IAABO Boards be consistent when calling the contact rule.
Board 111 refs: The officials you work with are the only officials who will also provide your ratings.
Coaches: Get one official off their tournament list for every tournament and state game they play.
Disqualified players with five fouls: No fouling out, but any additional foul results in two foul shots and the ball for the offended team at the spot of the foul
Educators: Coaches who will teach life lessons that cannot be taught or learned in the academic classrooms.
Fans: A shot clock for high school basketball.
Interpreters of the five IAABO boards: Game tapes to help teach officials advantage and disadvantage on contact.
Maine Principals’ Association: A voucher system to ease transfer problems.
Officials: Extra whistles to call all the fouls.
Public address announcers: A good memory to remember when they can use the PA system during games.
Radio announcers/color analyst.: Remember to give the score more often.
School boards: The fortitude to support coaches about playing time, squad selections, team strategy and other players.
Scorers: Go back to having players raise their hands when they commit a foul.
Substitutes: More playing time.
Teams: Eighty-four foot courts, not 94-foot college courts, for tournament games at Bangor (Cross Insurance Center) and Portland (Expo and Cumberland Community Civic Center).
Team Managers: More thoughtful players to make their job easier.
Timers: Precision timing devices when the officials stop and start the clock.
Assists: Everyone use the same determining factor.
Backboards: Get cleaned more than once during the season.
Bangor High School teams: A couple of home games at the new Cross Insurance Center.
Calls by officials: Be consistent.
Coaches clinics: More clinics and more coaches to attend these clinics.
State boys and girls basketball champs in Classes A, B, C, D: Four-team tournaments after the state finals to determine the best team in the state for boys and girls
Class A state champions: Bring back the New England Basketball Tournaments
Cross Insurance Center: Consideration for a Class A state final.
Floors: Get swept more and not be slippery.
Pregame handshakes with officials: Allow fist bumping by officials
Prelims: Hold at tournament sites.
Refs shirts: Return to black and white.
Rulebooks: To all who do not know the rules.
Sportsmanship: Eliminate the lines for shaking hands after a game.
Tournaments: Back to three-day formats: three games in three days, quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals.
Me: More good topics to write about.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.