For some volunteer work, I ref for the CYO elemtary school league. I've done it for the past 4 years. As I'm the only "patched" official there I usually get my choice of the prime games.
Yesterday, I was working the championship games, with another ref, not too experienced but he put forward a ton of effort and made some great calls.
Now both teams are carrying the ball a lot, and I mean a lot, we made more calls for carrying in this game then I ever remember doing.
Coach A is a very good coach. He's been coaching in this league for at least 4 years, that's when I started and he's also a coach in our version of the AAU. We've had our run-ins in the past I think over all the games I've had this guy in I've T'd him up about 4 or 5 times. I didn't think he was capable of changing but I guess I was wrong.
Near the end of the 3rd quarter, my partner (trail) calls a carry right infront of the bench. It was a good call, the ball carrier definately carried the ball. But the coach didn't think so, he starts getting on my partners back, so I walk over to administer the throw in, make eye contact with the coach, as he's giving my partner a hard time. He immediately shuts up, in mid sentence. It was just an awesome experience, I've never been able to get a coach to stop complaining about a calls without saying a word or putting up a stop sign.
I guess it raised my confidence level a bit, but it was so uncharacteristic for this coach that my table crew, whom've all dealt with this guy before, just start laughing. They said they've never seen anyone who was able to get this guy to shut up.
Well, I hope that this "look" I gave him can be duplicated, because I really hope I can use it successfully again.
That was the highlite of my weekend.