A Taste of the Big Time......

[grunewar]

My assignor/trainer calls me last week and asks if I am free to do a GV afternoon game at the Verizon Center (home of the Wizards). Me = "SURE!" I was honored to be considered!

I am by far the junior guy of the six officials. Two games and I am U2 for GV. We get there early and wait, and wait, and wait. The R1 (my game) finally arrives and we're running late and he goes to use the restroom (R2 - boys V) hides his equipt bag. He comes out of the restroom and goes nuts - WHY WASN'T ANYBODY WATCHING IT? WHAT THE F? CALL SECURITY! etc. After a few minutes and some choice words, R2 returns his bag......payback will be bad R1 says......

We do the pregame and take the court - seating capacity = 18,000, we have maybe 300! Floor was great - very forgiving (easy on feet). Court was wide and long - worked up a good sweat. Fox 40 was lacking in a bldg this size no matter how much air I put in it! Took me a while to adjust to where the scoreboard was - if you're the C and look up you see the bottom of the jumbotron - nothing else. As the L and you can see ok, but it's best to use the long scoreboards along the side/back of the arena. Took some getting used to. Loved the clock on the top of the backboard. Teams weren't great, but my partners said I did good. Still things to work on as always.

We go back to locker room for our postgame chat. BV officials are departing. R1 then notices he forgot his towel. Hmmm, payback time? R1 uses R2's towel to dry after his shower. We then go watch the BV game. It ends and we all head back to the locker room. R2 notices his wet towel hanging with his stuff......hysterical. Of course, we had to go find him a towel. Took forever. It was excellent fun!

Met several from the media, coaches, the Wizards GM, Ernie Grunfeld, Sixers FWD, Elton Brand and many other Sixers - they are so friggin big! Wow!

After that we all went for dinner and then returned to the arena to watch the Sixers vs Wizards as they comped us lower level 100 level seats.

All in all, for a guy starting his fourth year, an excellent day of much learning, growing, and camaraderie!

Thanks for all your help guys. I couldn't believe how relaxed I was during the game. Hey, I was even designated to make the toss.

This was maybe my one and only shot at the "big time." But, one never knows......

PS - it did have one sour note as Abe Pollin, longtime owner of the Wizards passed away on this day and there were some long faces in the arena.

[Nevadaref]

Congrats!

BTW what is the name of your HS officiating organization and which teams were involved in the games?

[ODJ]

Sweet! Congrats.

[Back In The Saddle]

Sounds fabulous! Congrats!!

[JRutledge]

Sounds like you have fun. I worked in the United Center twice with a similar situation. Once MJ was watching his son Jeffrey playing a conference rival. Kind of cool and I see you had similar fun. Except we had only one game in the arena that day. Kind of cool.

Peace

[grunewar]

Nevada - sent you the info via PM.

As told to us by a Wizards official, apparently the deal with the schools was - if both schools purchased several hundred tickets for the Wizards game that night, their teams were essentially "renting the gym" for the afternoon.

Very compressed time schedule as we had to be off the court for the Sixers shoot-around right after the BV game.

[kwv001]

Grunewar - Congratulations! I know exactly how you feel. I had an opportunity last weekend to work a game in Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. It was a similiar situation in that apparently it was part of a group sales promotion the Pacers were doing with area high school teams.

I know it is, but the floor didn't really seem any longer than normal. I also struggled with the scoreboard being overhead, but with the clock on top of the backboard, I found I didn't really need it. The one thing I really liked, are the red lights everywhere (even the length of the scorers table) when time expires. I had never worked in a gym equiped like this, and since I found myself twice in the C spot opposite the table as last second shots were thrown up it was nice. Of course, the arena wasn't really loud enough to make hearing the horn an issue either.

We also had only a few hundred there. I had a buddy go along to take some pictures. I've joked that when i get some time, I'm going to use PhotoShop to fill in all the empty seats and make it look more impressive!

[Back In The Saddle]

Originally Posted by kwv001

We also had only a few hundred there. I had a buddy go along to take some pictures. I've joked that when i get some time, I'm going to use PhotoShop to fill in all the empty seats and make it look more impressive!

Oh the fun you could have with that! Don't forget to add a fan section just for you and your crew, all in striped shirts of course.

[stripes]

Good for you! Enjoy all of those you get. In my neck of the woods they don't happen often.

[BillyMac]

My local board works a scholarship tournament, gratis, the Doc Hurley Classic, in the XL Center (former Hartford Civic Center). I've also worked an AAU scrimmage there during halftime of a MacDonald's All American game. My biggest adjustment problem was the lighting. I've never worked under such bright lights. It was actually distracting for several minutes.

The first year we worked there, one of our veteran officials got confused and reported fouls to the press table, that was on the other side of the court from the scorer's table. He never lived that down.

[Nevadaref]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

The first year we worked there, one of our veteran officials got confused and reported fouls to the press table, that was on the other side of the court from the scorer's table. He never lived that down.