Our campers were welcomed in Radom with a great, sunny weather while starting the intense agenda for this year’s REFEREE.PL being already 15th edition in a row. The team of excellent instructors kicked off the long 5 days working and training camp with lectures, at the beginning the whole group had one common aim - TO IMPROVE.

Luigi Lamonica was presenting on how to develop yourself as official and how the referee career path looks like. He quoted Miguel Betancour about the experience that comes with time and changes the quality of officiating: “THE AGE IS NOT IMPORTANT, THE NUMBER OF THE GAMES NEITHER, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS THE QUALITY OF THE GAMES”. Eventually however he reminded to focus on the other important thing: “BUT AT THE END, KEEP FOR YOURSELF WHAT YOU THINK IS USEFUL FOR YOU”.

Jose, in his own style, was encouraging to keep the teamwork on and off the court. He talked about the trust to the partners, but most of all to treat others the same way that you would like to be treated.

Grzegorz mentioned to pay attention to practice your voice. He gave advices into, how to support, how to help and how to explain situations to be understood, for not to sound in anyway aggressive, or overwhelming. According to Grzegorz the sound of your whistle shall fulfill following criteria of three “s”: SHARP, STRONG and SHORT.

Sasa explained the control of the game rules and how important are the details. How small and subtle occurrences can change the picture of the game and in the end the game result.

Todd gave us an extensive load of the information about the screens and how to watch them properly. He also confirmed again on how important the defender game assessment is.  

Marcin’s main points were on the new changes in the game rules. He brought our highest attention to the new rule while action time measuring, which is resulted in game acceleration, which makes it more dynamic and excellent show for spectators.

For the end we have one story from the camp: During dinner and cheering up Luigi got nostalgic on the topic of friendships that are made at the camps and tournaments, he said we referees, are one big international FAMILY, which is supporting each other, helping each other in difficult situations, anywhere in the world. Luigi also added that maybe in our heads we will not remember lectures and topics, maybe only few advices we will use for the future, but for sure everyone will remember this moments that we spend together at the camp, this fun and great atmosphere and all the new and old friends that we met. This is for life.

And also one thoughts share from Hoj Fozi, who attended the camp few times already:

“I started attending Referee.pl in Antalya 2015. The camp was a great experience for me as the first time. I enjoyed the hotel, games and great instructors’ classroom sessions and practical feedbacks. The first-time experience draws me back again and again to the camp which took place in Radom for next 3 years. Standard of most of the games, fantastic group of instructors, diversity of campers and socializing part of the camp are only a few of the reasons that I keep attending referee.pl for 4 consecutive years.

Officiating basketball is very dynamic and an ever-learning adventure which you only stop learning when you hang your whistle. I find this camp one of the best opportunities to add to my experience and improve my officiating skills. There isn’t a day went past in this camp that I didn’t learn something new from an instructor, a camper, a player or a coach. High standard of some games is always talking point amongst campers that everyone enjoys officiating. I had the great pleasure of being able to officiate some of these games and I always return for some more. Social dinner is one of the highlights of the camp. You get to hear from instructors, campers and the volunteers some touching or funny stories which you would remember for rest your life. You get to meet many people from all parts of the world and you get to hang out with them away from any politics and prejudice.

Thanks to Kuba and all the organizers for creating such an opportunity.”