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Last week-end I was watching two veteran officials work a Boys Varsity game. Cross-town rivals, close game, everything you can ask for. The game was tied with the Visitors at the foul line. Home team 10 fouls, Visiting Team 6 fouls. Visiting team shooting double bonus. 1st shot good, second shot a miss. The ball bounced off the rim and to the baseline corner on the Trail side. One player from each team went for the ball. Home team player A1 got hooked up with Visiting team player B1 as they were both going for the ball. It looked like A1 pulled B1 down as their arms were hooked together, and thus B1 fell out of bounds.
The Trail official blew his whistle, with his hand going straight in the air...but no fist. As the Trail official was walking to the bench he blew his whistle again for a Technical foul on B2. The Lead official walked over to the scorer's table to see what his partner had.
(I went into the officials locker room after the game, so I know what transpired.)
At this point the Trail official said he blew his whistle the first time because he thought he had a correctable error situation. The Trail official thought the fouls were reversed and the Visiting team B should not have been shooting. The Lead cleared that up and assured him the correct number of fouls were shot. Now, that explained the whistle with Trails hand in the air. Lead asked Trail what he had, out of bounds on B1 or a foul on A1. Trail said he didn't see it, he was just blowing the whistle for the correctable error situation. Oh and by the way, B2 player had said F*** to no one in particular as Trail was walking to the scorer's table. (He could have been upset that there was no apparent foul call on A1) The Lead official said, "Ok, I think we have a foul on A1 for pulling B1 out of bounds...then we have a technical on B2 for profanity...we shoot them in the order they happened." Trail said, "Ok, since I blew the whistle I'll sell it to the coaches."
The two officials got both coaches together to explain what they had. Surprisingly, no coach questioned the foul call even though the Trail didn't put his fist in the air...but I know we have all probably forgot to close our fist at least once, so it was an easy sell.
Here is where this Forum came into play. Team B coach asked the Trail official what his player had said. Trail official said he used profanity. Team B coach persisted, so the Lead official (using a line he got from this forum) said, "Coach, the word started with "F" and ended in "uck" and it wasn't "Firetruck"." He later said the Coach wasn't amused, just as was earlier stated here.
Anyway, an interesting situation that was handled by two veteran officials. It showed me even Veteran officials can make mistakes, just fix them fairly.
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