How to become a basketball referee in arizona

— How are Ukrainians treated in the NBA?

- And nobody cares where you are from. Ukrainian or Colombian, if you play, do your job. In America - fuck everyone! The main thing is to do business. Even though Slava Medvedenko won the NBA with the Lakers, he was still drawn home. How many communicated with him, I felt it. America is not his country. But let's say Vitalik Potapenko is another story. They were afraid to play against him! They called it "Ukrainian train". After skirmishes with him, the players were bruised. Potapenko stayed to live and work in the USA - he was an assistant in Cleveland, and now in the Memphis Grizzlies.

Let's take the younger generation: Swie Mykhailyuk - simply score and there will be no questions for you. Nobody cares where you are from. America is also called the cauldron where all nations get along. Yes, there is a lot of racism, but if you do your job, no one cares what country you are from.

There was a funny moment about this topic. A new coach is coming - Doug Collins. And I completely forgot that he was in the team that lost at the Olympics-72 SRSR. I introduced myself - Sergey. He answered: “Sergey fakin Belov?” I say: "Sergey fakin Khmelevsky." And so far I have him Sergey Fakin Belov. This is old school.

- NBA - a league where everyone wants to work, plus a lot of intrigue and pitfalls. How will they last 15 years in the NBA?

- As my coach at the children's school used to say: "I took the ball - damn it." I was just doing my job. And there was no such thing as this work forever. Every year at the end of the season we had an interview. First, the management talks to the players about the personnel. Who like it, who don't. And how did Volodya Shulman work in Boston for 35 years? Serezha Chekmarev is still a hockey massage therapist for the Detroit Red Wings. There was also the legendary Asker Barcha from CSKA Moscow. Generally 50 years of work. Professionalism.

There are different situations. A player comes in and says, "I didn't sleep well and my neck hurts or my shoulder muscles hurt." If I say, “Most likely it’s not because you didn’t sleep well or a bad pillow, but because you’re quitting all the time and all that. This is fine!". And if I don’t relieve this spasm for him, he won’t come to me anymore and will say to his neighbor in the locker room: “My shoulder hurts in the morning, but Seryoga didn’t help, what kind of #whack is this?”. And so people lose their jobs if they don't know what to do.

— What is the most difficult part of this job?

- wear schedule. Flights, transfers. I don’t complain, but when a year has not worked, you ask yourself: “Why did I do this for so long?”. I left and now I sleep well. In American football, the main problem is concussion, hands break. And concussion affects the future. That in the NBA and NHL is a sleep problem. Because the schedule is very torn. 3 games in 4 days or 4 games in 7 days in different cities. The game, recovery procedures, and we can't leave until the basketball players talk to reporters, you get on the bus at 11 pm. (There, by the way, the media is now even more important than the medical staff. Until the guys give an interview, medical recovery does not begin. Everything is spelled out in the rules of the league).

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The longest way to the airport is 45 minutes in Toronto. You drive 45 minutes. Then customs, fly an hour, two, three. Then another bus. You go to the hotel, fall asleep at 3-4 o'clock, at 12 meeting, and they called you at 7 and woke you up. This is a feature, but I'm not the first. And many couldn't resist. I had a massage therapist from Brooklyn. He worked for 3 years and asked: “How do you do it? And why?". It's 7-9months of the year with your family you are on Skype. Let's just count the loads: the regular season is 82 games, plus there used to be 8 exhibition games before the season. Now they have been reduced to 4. This is somewhere around 85-86 + playoffs, about 100 games come out. Here is a minimum of 100 days you are not at home, plus preparatory training camps.

— How did your family feel about this?

— It's hard with a family, but work is work. And this work fed me and my family. But besides that, I had a second job. In one sports center I worked in parallel. When I came to the manager and said that I had finished with basketball, they answered me: “This is their loss, but our gain.”

— Instead of you in Philadelphia, the 76s hired a girl as a massage therapist…

— Couldn't stand it for long. I don't know if she left on her own or if they left her. There is no substitute for experience. Experience and reputation. There's a trend in the league right now to hire masseuses. But this work is worn out, and not everyone can handle it. You can not go to all the whims of the players.

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- What are you talking about?

- Sometimes players call at night, give me a massage. We must respect, we are not servants. If he wakes up at two in the morning because he has a muscle spasm, I will react. And if you just took a walk and thought up a massage for the night, then I'm sorry. Most importantly the players are not afraid and do not live their lives. There were other situations. A youngster comes and says: “Give me a massage!”. I say that before the game I give massages only to the starting lineup and veterans. And in the locker room begins to nail me. So veteran Jason Richardson told him: “Listen, stop it, because Sergey is right.” The guy came up and apologized. The whims could be: "Do it to me first, and push that one aside or come to my room, and not me to you." In the locker room, it is immediately clear who is shit and who is not. If you respect all the rules, then everything is fine. And if you tell something to someone and no one yet ... Everything in this life must be earned. If you want a massage, make an appointment, I will come not in 3, but in 4 hours. But 2 hours before the game is the time of the starting lineup and veterans. The most important thing is not to be afraid, to live without fear.

— How is that?

— Don't be afraid to do your job as you see fit. And what someone tells you is like that. A person has a sense of fear, but when you come and fawn over Iverson or Messi, you are no longer a person and not a professional. As soon as he turned off the righteous path and began to fawn before people.

- And how did you, man, work in the women's handball team of Spartak for so many years?

— In the 80s, our girls from the team often met Dynamo football players. And now the Dynamo player Vanya Yaremchuk once told me: “Seryoga, not everyone is not so lucky in work and life!” And laughed. I replied: “I come to work every day and do my professional duties.”

— In our sport, some actions are often performed “for luck”. Does the NBA have this?

— It's everywhere! Sergeer Rodriguez, a Spaniard, he also played in CSKA, now in Milan, was in my team and still remains my friend. We met, we sit at the table, we have lunch. He has a beard, I once asked him: “You came to the NBA without a beard, why is there such a beard now?” He replies: “The beard began to grow and some injuries stopped bothering me, I thought so and did not shave.” And it's not that superstition. Each player in everyday life has his own chips. They eat at certain times and sleep at certain times. And one player, let's say, eats a certain food or drinks beetroot juice. And everything is calculated by the minutes before the game and training.

There was a situation where a player came in for an ankle taping. If the coach forgot that he is taping on the left foot and started on the right, there will be a scandal.

— How often did the players slip up, invent illnesses?

— Why is the NBA good? Here everyone is minding their own business. And you don't have to think of anything. The player has something in pain, he goes to the head of the medical service. And now it's all quickly checked. 5 years ago, a company from Australia entered the league, which created its own agency of scientists and conducts a very strong examination of all medical issues. Athletes are under full control, they play and train with sensors, every step is monitored. This was not the case before. When I came to work in the team, in addition to the head coach, there were only 4 people of the medical staff: a physical training coach, a massage therapist, an athletic trainer (the person in charge of the medical part) and an assistant athletic trainer. Now there are a lot of people. Even reaches 10-12. I don't mind, but sometimes it's too much. There should be one chef in the kitchen, and there are a lot of them in the NBA now. The state is a little inflated, but this is a separate conversation. The owners have a lot of money, all billionaires.

Our owners bought the team 7 years ago and paid 285 million, and now the 76th club is worth about 2 billion. The owners are ready to invest money for development. Approaches are different. Even the Navy SEAL came to lecture the players on how to work through I can't.

— Scientific groups of teams developed before your eyes. How it was?

— New owners have come to Philadelphia and with them a new general manager, strong Houston Rockets analyst Sam Hinkey. It was he who brought a researcher who put the entire training process under a scientific basis. Basketball players began to train in special sensors. They began to control who works on what pulse. This is the health of the athlete and the progress of the team. But dry analytics figures will not replace the human factor.

— How much did it change the league in terms of the training process? In terms of parsing the opponent in terms of technology.

- Again, the question is not for me. We had meetings where we were told what and how we would do, I was a participant in a scientific symposium. We gathered all the teams and invited people who are experts in sleep and nutrition. They discussed how flights affect, how not only sports science can improve and protect an athlete from injuries and serious consequences. Big sport is not physical education. Every person going to training and playing risks their health and career.

— And what are these specialists?

- They make graphs, analyze how a person sleeps, etc. And according to the results of these daily studies, they determine what kind of load to give them, to let them play for 20 or 30 minutes. Suppose this was not the case during Iverson, he played as much as he wanted. It was at the discretion of the coach, he knew everyone, but not on the basis of science, but on the basis of sensations, he visually felt how much time to give the player.

- Science, medicine and proper recovery help players to play an incredible number of matches?

- Coach Doug Collins once said that for another 30 years the NBA played the same 82 games, the same back-to-back, only the basketball players did not have charter and own planes, the players calmly went on ordinary flights, how we traveled with handball Spartak — ordinary flights with ordinary people. And now the players have all the conditions, everyone has their own room, everything is scheduled for each player, given: here's a meal, lunch, here's a hotel, here's a bus, just play. Here you have a specially equipped plane, here you have sports medicine, science, masseurs. I think that in some cases it even indulges in something. They believe that this is how it should be, but they forget how it was before. They have everything to play their favorite game 100-200%. The league creates the best conditions for teams and players.

Are the players super professional?

- In most cases, yes. But there were different situations. One of the young basketball players ate fast food right in the locker room, the elder saw it. "What are you doing? There are 7.5 billion people on earth, millions play basketball, and everyone dreams of playing in the NBA. 30 teams of 15 players. 450 carefully selected basketball players! Many strong basketball players don't fit in the NBA and play in Europe or China! You are among the best and must fill the best gasoline in your body, ”he said.

90 percent of your body depends on food, the rest is exercise. Previously, individual training was for fans of their craft, like Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. Now individual lessons and approach to everyone is the norm. In addition to training, the player works individually: gym, recovery, procedures. All this takes 5-6 hours. And my working day took an average of 8 hours. After all, the staff arrives earlier and leaves later.

In order not to get a fine, one player, who is late for training, enters the training session with the driver of the emergency vehicle. The coach asks: “Where are you and what are you? And who is this? He replies: “I had a tire puncture, I brought a witness, otherwise you would not have believed it.” There were no video cameras back then. He called an emergency gang, they replaced his wheel, and says that he does not need to be fined.

- What is the specifics of the daily routine of a massage therapist who works in the NBA? How is your day?

— It all depends on whether it's game day or practice day. Training - usually training at 11:00, the medical staff who tap the players all gather 3 hours before the start of training. Then the players arrive - according to the schedule. Beginners first, veterans pull up later. Everyone tries to show up early to get some sort of short massage to prepare themselves for the workout. Then a workout.

I preferred to be at training with a towel when the floor gets wet so that someone doesn't fall, slip, wipe.

- During training, do you stand with a towel and look to get out, if anything?

Yes. Well, it's not just me, it's the entire medical staff.

— Why does an athlete need a massage? And what is the feature of your massage under a basketball player?

— Firstly, before training you warm up your muscles, they work every day, they quit. This is a preliminary, preparatory, warming up massage so that he feels that at the beginning of the training he could start 100% prepared. If you do not warm up the body, then you can easily get injured.

— How often did people get injured because they weren't prepared? Or prepared incorrectly.

— There are no devices that can tell whether you are prepared or not. If a player on any team felt that the massage therapist did something wrong, then that person would not be on the team. This is the NBA and the best in their fields work here.

- Tell me, training and you are on the alert, and then what?

– After training, restorative massage, 2-3 hours of work. I gave you one training day. And in conditional 5-6 hours I am free.

Tell me about Allen Iverson. You were lucky to see the legendary basketball player in everyday life

- Iverson is a man of great talent and sparkling reaction. I have not seen a more efficient person who did not pay attention to any injuries and did not work with him. With little growth, Iverson has become one of the toughest players in the NBA. For a very long time, he believed that training was not important. The main thing is the game. And he even talked about it publicly.

But at one point Larry Brown led the team and was able to take Iverson to another level. Brown wanted Iverson to reconsider his attitude to training, not to underestimate their benefits. Iverson believed that he could play in any physical condition, even with an injury. Endured! After all, the game was everything to him. The best indicator is the game with Orlando, when he scored 60 points.

After the first quarter, when he scored in the 20s, I thought “wow, this is going to be interesting!”. In training, he could easily get up and score 70-100 free throws in a row. Already at the end of his period in our club, he began to change his attitude to training. In order to understand his psychology, you need to know his childhood. Iverson grew up without a father in a very difficult area, where there were constant problems with the law.

Despite his star status, I never had any problems with him. I was a professional in my field, and he respected that. And I respected him.

- Did Iverson have competition in the team, or was he above all?

I don't think he had any competition. Any team, any team sport is built around stars and superstars. And so the Iverson team was built around him. Many people say that he could have achieved more if he had been on a regimen or exercising more, like Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. I don't know, I wouldn't say.

— Why?

- This is his personal choice, and I would not talk about this topic. It is what it is. He made his choice, but left a huge mark on the history of the NBA. Superstar. An African American idol, he brought in a certain culture with his pigtails. Known fact: in Philadelphia, a 13-year-old boy was shot dead in his area with a random bullet. When he was shot, he was wearing the number 3 T-shirt - Iverson. Iverson paid for his funeral, didn't know him at all, but he did.

Once a young player - Larry Hughes - once looked at Iverson and said: "You have such a car, wow!". Iverson gave him the keys to the Bentley and said, "Bring it tomorrow." And what's even more remarkable about this story is that this boy Larry went for a drive and did not fill up. At night, he ran out of gas in some disadvantaged area. Later he said to Iverson: “Why didn’t you warn that you had little gasoline?”

Iverson is very loyal to his environment, to people. If we were sitting at a bar in the evening or having dinner at a restaurant or hotel, he could come in and say to the waiter: “Send the bill to my room.” To the people he knows and feels, he is always as loyal as possible.

— You saw the approach of American and coaches. How do you now look at the methods of work of the legendary handball mentor Turchin. You worked for Spartak for many years…

— The Soviet school of trainers is a totalitarian approach. Said they did it. Need, Need. If it is pure baseless authoritarianism, then no one will accept it. And if a specific task is given to a separate group or team and the coaches see that they are not doing it to the end, then Turchin could stop the training and say: “We are doing 10 accelerations!”. And try not to do it.

When I told the story in the NBA that coach Turchin died in the locker room, they just didn't understand, because it's business for them. The team for Turchin is his child, especially the first generation. Everyone was like a family, for the athletes he was God. So he recruited 12-year-old girls at school - Zina Turchina, Zakharova. And he said: "I will make champions out of you." And did. Legendary person. They all loved him terribly and idolized him. He demanded discipline. In America it's different. If the player is late, star, the plane can wait 15-20 minutes. And at Turchin 15 minutes late, wherever we are - get there yourself. As a coach of the USSR national team, he gathered the best in Kiev Spartak. If a player did not play at full strength, did not give himself up to the game, he could not send home, but to the base: sleep there and come to training in the morning.

— Is this impossible in America?

- Forget it. In America, especially now, the sport belongs to the players. Now LeBron ... They took a coach to the Lakers who stands on the sidelines and does not interfere with LeBron James winning the NBA championship. Coach Frank Vogel, a very good friend of mine. When he came to the League, he was a videographer, and now he has risen to head coach of the Lakers. See how Frank Vogel progressed from videographer to NBA winner as head coach. The task for him is to find an approach to the stars.

Players influence a lot, but not everything. I would call it symbiosis. If the player is right and demands something, management looks into it. But when he crosses the line, he will be stopped.

— Among the coaches, no one behaves like Turchin in the NBA? So I said, and so it should be?

- Here is a more democratic approach. Let's say someone is exercising coolly. The trainer could stop the session and say so. Turchin was so emotional, he could shout, swear. At the World Championships, he called the German judges swear words and he was disqualified for six months, the international federation. For six months he could not sit on the bench at international competitions. He called them pigs. He couldn't contain his emotions. The man won 20 USSR championships in a row, I was lucky, of course, to work with such a coach.

On the other hand, when Turchin went to work in Norway, his methods were not accepted there. Another mentality. The most interesting thing is that he graduated from the Institute of Physical Education in basketball, and then it was the Soviet system, that they called him and said: “We are cultivating a new sport - handball. You will train!" There was no choice. Appointed - do it, it was the Soviet Union. Now the conditions are different. And he went to an ordinary school on Otradnoye, it seems, and recruited girls. And he brought them to Spartak, to gold medals. Unique story.

One of the success factors is iron discipline. As long as the team traveled abroad, there were no conflicts. Representatives of various sports, football, and others were caught stealing. No one escaped from us, no one did anything, we had "better to die than let the team down in this way." It was a feeling of pride for the team, for the country.

I remember the first time I put on a suit with the letters USSR on the back, it was a pride. Or let's say someone told me that I would work with such a great coach, I would say: "Is this a joke?". These places have long been occupied by someone. But if you do your job professionally, then there will be a chance. I have nothing but respect for this man. He taught me a lot. When I left the team and said about emigration, he flared up. Such a person.

I have been in Ukraine 2-3 times in these 30 years. On one of his visits, I went to Spartak and saw former players, Zina Turchina, Zakharova. Then with his daughter we went to his cemetery and there was a good feeling.

- Why did the 76ers stop working in Philadelphia?

— I worked alone all the time. Then a new coach came, seven years ago, and things started to change. He asked to prepare 7 masseurs, so that they would come and we “worked out” the whole team in 2 hours and they went to rest. But I told him that if you want me to be the organizer of this, then I, accordingly, should be the head of the department and receive accordingly.

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We used to come back from a game, and the coach would say right at night what time tomorrow a group of massage therapists should be at the base. I was dissatisfied, because this is disrespect for people. They also have their own plans. Collecting this pool is a separate job. They didn't want to pay for it. They said goodbye to me, took a blonde girl, but she quickly left.

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