[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Mark Padgett

The first rule of officiating: "Tuck your whistle in your jersey BEFORE you take a leak."

Originally Posted by BillyMac

... he may never officiate basketball again and could end up officiating The Mark Padgett Memorial Croquet Tournament (game fees plus all the cucumber sandwiches and watercress sandwiches one can eat).

Originally Posted by Matt

This appears to be a Trumpet of the Swan reference.

I'm not familiar with that reference (I even checked it out on the Google and still didn't understand the reference).

One of my favorite Forum posters was Mark Padgett. The reference to officiating croquet came from him joking that after serious cardiac surgery he was forced to live in an assisted living facility and he turned in his basketball whistle and began to officiate croquet.

Originally Posted by BillyMac

I would often try to convince Mark Padgett to switch his jokes from "Hot Mom" to "Hot single Mom", not wanting to encourage officials to become home wreckers. I miss Mark Padgett. Not only because of his great sense of humor, his childhood South Side of Chicago mobster stories, his pride in his Jewish faith, and his pride in the recreation leagues that he organized (offering "scholarships" to underprivileged youth) in his new home in the Pacific Northwest, but also because of his insight into officiating recreation level basketball. Sometimes some us forget that there's a whole world of basketball officiating under the professional, international, intercollegiate, and interscholastic level, and that the kids that play at these recreation levels deserve to have some minimum level of competent officiating to fully enjoy their childhood basketball experiences. For some, perhaps many, this will be their last experience playing organized basketball, and Mark Padgett was the guy to insure that their recreation experience was going to be a great one.