Under the directorship of Sandra Mottram, Coffs Harbour Basketball has one of the best referee programs in Country NSW and in fact its program has previously won awards from NSW Basketball.

The program is based on recruitment, education, supervision, evaluation and protection.

Our Primary School competition is where most of our new officials learn their trade and to help them do so, Sandra organises a training course before they hit the courts and then an apprenticeship, firstly as a "green shirt runner" and then a stand alone "green shirt" partnering with an experienced official on the other sideline.

When our educators and evaluators are satisfied the officials can contol one side of a game without a 'helper' they graduate from "greenshirt" to "zebra stripes".

We acknowledge, and you should understand that even when they gain their "stripes", our referees are not Olympic Game qualified - they've just taken the first steps to become a good official.

However, our 'zebras' are not left to their own devices.

On our Friday and Saturday competitions especially, we employ a referee's supervisor to rove across all courts, making sure the referees are doing their job, and providing casual education and evaluation'on the run'.

Last Saturday Referee's Director Sandra Mottram conducted one of her regular 'in-service' courses.  
All Saturday officials were given a revision course on areas of common concern.  One of the major items for this week's training was a revision of the specific rules for each of the three different competitions run on Saturday.

Mottram is very pleased with the progress being made with the latest crop of young CHBA referees and is looking forward to identifying and training the next batch of officials. early in the new year.

If you are interested in 'taking up the whistle' or ready to come back to officiating after a break, please send an email to reff@coffsharbourbasketball.com.au.

Thank you for your understanding and support of our trainee referee's program.  I am sure you realise that those young boys and girls out there in the zebra stripes could be your son or daughter or perhaps brother or sister.

The rules of basketball are quite complex and stretch to some 96 pages and that's not including the 6 pages of specific CHBA rules.  
However, all of this can be simplified  for players, spectators and coaches into 2 simple rules:
Rule 1: The referee is always right
Rule 2: If you think the referee is wrong, refer to Rule 1.
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