Most individuals have the same reply, when they are asked to run a score clock for a basketball game. That answer is no thanks. However, with just a little practice, you can learn to operate a score clock and become one of the very few individuals that can. Once you learn, there is money to be made.
People don’t like to operate a score clock, because of fear of mistakes. Keep in mind, that everyone makes a mistake everyday of their life. The good thing about mistakes, on a score clock, is that they are all correctable errors. Eliminate the fear. The only difference, in a score book or score clock, is that it is seen by the players and fans. Get past that fear and you are ready to go.
Arrive an hour or more early for the game. Tell the Athletic Director that you need time to practice. All clocks are different. However, they are made to operate as easily as possible. Get familiar with the locations of the score buttons, fouls, team fouls, period, individual fouls, horn and start and stop switch. Some boards have a bonus light for fouls and some for a possession arrow. Master these, and you are set.
The start- stop switch is usually at the end of one wire, that goes into one of your hands and stays there. When the officials hand goes up, stop the clock. When it goes down, start the clock. Don’t worry about the horn, at the end of a quarter or game. It goes off automatically.
Time for games is established by others, not the timer. They can be adjusted for various reasons. Games have 6, 8 and 10 minute quarters and 20 minute half’s. The lower skilled games like Junior High have the shorter quarters. There is one minute between quarters and ten minutes per half time. You manually blow the horn one minute before the start of the game and half. This gives players time to get to the bench, collect balls and prepare to play.
For timeouts, there are 30 second and one minute timeouts. For the 30 second timeout, blow the horn at 20 seconds. For the one minute timeout, blow it at 45 seconds. You also blow the horn, to get a substitute into the game, when the ball is dead. The substitute goes on, only when the official beckons them on.
Your score book keeper should sit as close to you as possible. They will communicate the team and personal fouls to you verbally. The officials will always report who the fouls were on to you. Your score book keeper will confirm this before you put it on the board.
As I said earlier, score clock errors are always correctable. I have even seen them made to determine a games outcome, once the game was over. This is the officials final job, not yours. You just do what you are told. Your job is to operate the score clock as best as you can.
After you have operated the score clock a few times, you will become a very important person and there is money to be made. Why? Because, very few people want this job. Once you do it, you will only get better with experience. Good score clock operators are very hard to come by.
So the next time you are asked to run a score clock, don’t shy away. It is not that hard to do.
