I had a freshman game, the school was closer to my workplace than my home, so I took my bag with me to work and left for the game after work. Arrived at the site an hour and a half before tip off. Went to the locker room to change and decided to go watch the varsity boys team practice. I was the only one in the stands. about 30min before game time a man comes up to me and asked if I was working the game tonight. "Duh" Iam sitting there with black shoes, black socks, black pants, and a black and white striped shirt. I said yes I was. He stated he was working this game and he was my partner. I went to shake hands with him and to give him my name,he made no move to shake my hand. I thought to myself this is going to be a long night. I walked him to the locker room to show him where to chnage. As he was changing he started to rattle on how he was not happy about being here and that his wife took the call and accepted the game since one of the other officials had called the school telling them he was sick. He stated he did not work lower level games, and was only doing varsity. I told him with his experiece I would learn some things from him tonight. He stated not to expect much from him. As time passed he is getting dressed he wanted me to know that he had worked 4 state tournament games. Now it is getting crowded in the locker room,his ego was taking up most of the space. He finishes getting dressed and I asked him if he was ready to go over the pre-game. Now Iam thinking with his experience this would be a great learning experience for me. Wrong, he said he did not think a pre-game was worth the time for a freshman game. As we were walking out of the locker room, he turned to me and said " don't expect much help from me tonight this is your game. Enough was enough. I kindly turned to him and said. I would rather work this game alone as to work with you. I got no response from him. So I told him that I would not work with him. I told him to take his check and get the hell out of the gym, and if he did not I was going to. He turned around walked back to the locker room picked up his bag and left. The AD at the school was a official and we did the game together. I explained what had happend and he had heard this guy could be an ***. The AD and I worked well together had a great time with no complaints. Ever since that day I now get 2-3 varsity games a year from that school.
|