We have 2 school boards in the city. Catholic and Public. Each school has their own athletics association, for the middle school games the public board uses certified refs. The Catholic board uses volunteer officials so the officiating isn't always of quality.
I volunteer my time to work some of these Catholic school games. I'm one of the only "patched" officials to work this league, so I usually get the top notch games. They have 3 divisions. A, B, and C with A being the highest. I was watching the B final, as I was working the A final, and was preparing for the game. The two teams were green and white. Now with 10 seconds left on the clock white is down by 1. White has the ball in their back-court and calls a timeout.
Now the first error by these officials, they had the ball thrown in after the timeout at centre court as opposed to where the ball was at the time the timeout was called.
Now, I don't think that really made much of a difference.
But this one did, on the throw-in following the timeout, green is playing awesome defence, but a white player manages to get open near the basket. The thrower throws the ball to him, and he's in a great position for the shot, when I hear a whistle. I look over to the official who administered the throw-in, and he called travelling on the thower. I was so shocked. It was horrible that such ignorance of the rules exists.
Now I was doing the next game with a "patched" official who's done the girls provincial tournament for the last 2 years, and this year is going to one of the boys tournaments, and he was in as much shock as I was. But we joked about it throughout our game.
I just felt so bad for the white team, because they had perfect position for a shot, and this official cost them it.
Now this official (who called the travel on the throw-in) also coaches AAU type ball and has felt the wrath of ref18 before, but still, if those are the calls he expects to be made on one of his games, he's up for a rude awakening.
Edited for spelling.
[Edited by ref18 on Feb 27th, 2005 at 08:35 PM]