One of the best strategies I’ve seen in developing basketball skills as a team and player is to train through competing against players and teams that are far more physical, faster and bigger than you and/or your team.  If you are a 6^th grader, you have a better chance of furthering your basketball skills by competing against 7^th and 8^th graders as oppose to competing against other 6^th graders.  I’ve seen many teams lose badly by playing up several grades in many tournaments one year, come back the next year and compete as a top-level team in the championship game.  You need to get beat up by 70 or 80 points several times in a game, and knocked down physically by your opponent before you get better.

The IPABOA camp will provides a similar opportunity as a Game Official.  These players competing in this tournament are grown adults that are former Division I and current overseas players.  The speed of the game is far faster than your typical JC, DII and DII games.  These players are competing for money, so the pressure is more elevated than your typical camp.  If you want to become a better official, you need to put yourself in dire situations which will test your knowledge and physicality of the game.  If you want to be the best you need to understand your limits and compete with the best.  Are you in basketball shape?  Maybe you have a problem with learning and applying the rules properly within the game.  Are you a classroom person?  Have you evaluated yourself on tape?

As a Referee, we need to re-invest into the development of our Officiating career.  The players, coaches and fellow officials in the area which you officiate basketball deserves your training.   Your supervisor will appreciate your pro-active developmental training.  And most of all, you deserve the development on a yearly basis. 

A key point to performing as a great official is to clearly understand where we stand in our skill level.  As we open ourselves with a clear unbiased mind, we should always look to accept criticism at every level.  Not all criticisms are constructive criticisms. It is up to you to pick and choose what you feel is valid and fully develop your skills from those feedbacks.  You should take back the values you learn from our camp and share it with your Association to elp develop your fellow Officials.

I hope to see you all at camp.

Tom Drakeford

Camp Director, IPABOA

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