I’ve been having a thought and some discussions regarding when referees should make the Star Pass hand signal, and I wanted to share/discuss. This might not be novel or new for some, but there’s certainly still a lot of variance.
Obviously, the Jam Ref for the team passing the star should make the hand signal once they’re confirming that yes, a valid and legal star pass has occurred. But do any other referees need to make the hand signal?
My thinking is that pack referees (inside and out) should only make the hand signal if they themselves witnessed the legal and valid star pass. Otherwise it’s not your call to make.
Why?
The hand signal should be [1] for the jam ref to communicate to their scorekeeper, or [2] a pack ref to communicate to the jam ref that the star was passed and was legal. If you didn’t personally witness it, you may be sending erroneous information.
Most of the confusing failed star passes happen because one referee sees the star in the pivot’s hand, makes the signal, and then other referees start echoing it. But one person saw a reason why it’s invalid, and now they’re trying to get attention and convey that no, it wasn’t a star pass. (It also looks a bit silly when six referees are all doing the tophat salute dance.)
It seems so simple. If you (as a pack ref) didn’t personally observe the legal star pass, don’t signal it. We don’t generally echo any other jam ref hand signal, why this one?
Edit to add: I’m not actually suggesting that we need a written/documented practice at this point. I think this is community discussion and education.
From an NSO viewpoint, the echoing is useful. The SK paperwork can wait until they have line of sight with the JR, but they still need to know asap so the SBO can update the scoreboard. The LT, if not combined into PLT, is often stationed on the outside and needs to know asap for their paperwork. It’s also useful for PB officials to know, so if the Jammer approaches the box still wearing a Stripe, they know how to deal with them. All of these officials may have their line of sight to the JR blocked at the moment the star pass signal is given, but the echoing ensures that they get the message anyway.
I liken this to how officiating procedures say that Pack Referees should echo the hand signals when a jam is called off. It’s a good way to ensure everyone who needs to know gets the message. You’ll often see a lot of NSOs who are in the centre also echoing it for the same reason.
In all the situations described, the NSOs need to know to which team the star pass applies, don’t they need to see the JR anyway for that?
I never signal the star pass as a pack ref unless I see myself that it is legal. Even then, i try to only do it if it brings something, i.e. if the JR didn’t see it. The reasons why are well outlined by Ump above. This all means that I mostly do this as OPR. Even then, the inside might have some info that I did not have (e.g. the pivot is penalised but hasn’t gone to the box yet), so my hand signal is, in a way, more of a communication to the inside than anything else, and can still be overridden due to reasons I am not aware of. Therefore I would find it a bit risky that NSOs rely on OPRs doing the hand signal. This information can still be used of course, but keeping in mind that it might not be final.
That’d be super useful, sure - but if the pack is between you and the JR when they do the signal then you don’t have that option. They often don’t repeat the signal for the SK, and they certainly won’t do it for other NSOs.
You can often deduce which team it was because you have eyes on the other Jammer. However if the OPRs are doing the signal and you don’t know which team it’s applying to, then at least you know two very important things: a) that a star pass has occurred and that you need to check the jammer’s numbers to see which has changed; and b) the moment when the star pass happened, which allows you to know which things that happen subsequently will be going on the next line of the paperwork if the star pass is for your team.
I prefer less hand signal echos. One that’s big enough signal for the announcers, audience, and NSOs to see is sufficient, IMO. But the JR might be a little busy doing other things to make a big signal, so if that’s the case and it was a tiny mouse hand signal, another official (might be the relevant PLT) might make it as well.
But let me add I much prefer the addition of a couple announced out loud “Star Pass complete” from someone.
Then for the NSOs, if the HNSO/PLT/whatever NSO is the main line of comm with the board can glance at the display, see if the “SP” indicator has appeared. If it has, the NSOs don’t need to repeat the hand signal. If the “SP” indicator has NOT appeared, then an inside NSO can repeat the signal for the SBO.
I strongly feel that whether or not non–JR referees should mirror the Star Pass signal is and should remain a decision for the HR and HNSO of any given game. I don’t believe a prescriptivist approach towards game management decisions such as this, where the pros and cons can be highly dependent on the characteristics of the event and crew provides sufficient benefit to justify standardization. While I understand the desire, particularly for officials who are consistently working events at the highest level, to create tightly defined protocols and practices, it is important to consider whether such restrictions on operational flexibility provides a meaningful benefit at all levels of gameplay. I believe the posts above make some excellent points about why mirroring may not be appropriate/desireable for a higher level crew, however I believe that standardizing this practice would not be of benefit to the operational effectiveness of developmental and intermediate crews. TL;DR I dont disagree with the promotion of this practice, but I believe its prescription would be counter-productive.
As Ump opened with, this is a valuable discussion to have, and not a consideration for standardization at this stage, I’d just like to raise pre-emptive caution should the discussion proceed in that direction.
I am under the impression that if you see a complete and legal starpass, you use the hand signal. If you don’t see it, you don’t signal and if you are late to the party, you don’t signal (like you don’t add in a 4th set of call of whistles cos you missed the first 3 sets).
To help the NSOs out, when I am HR or IPR I will say “White star pass complete” so the PLTs can hear me, and as a JR, I will do the star pass hand signal to my SK after the pivot-turned-jammer has exited the engagement zone to confirm they know what’s happened.
While I agree some things needs to be standardised globally as an Officiating Standard, I don’t think everything needs to be explicit written into the rules word for word on how to do things.