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Looking back, I know I shouldn't have done this....but....
Friday night and Saturday I worked a 5th grade tournament in a nearby town just because they treat officials very well. Friday night was smooth, but Saturday morning started off rocky. In the first game, I actually warned a coach about one of his players disagreeing with our calls. When said player earned his T in the second half, the coach actually questioned it. In this game I also had a T for staying out of bounds (I had no choice, the player threw the inbound pass, ran the entire length of the baseline oob and came in, caught a pass and put it in. First time I have ever called this) and I T'd up an assistant from the other team. In the second game, there were two fans that were on us from the get go. Travel, three seconds, so on and so forth. At the end of the first quarter I went to the bench and loudly enough so the entire crowd could hear informed my timer (who was also a member of the organization running the tournament) that if those two gentlemen (pointing specifically at the jerks) had anything else to say they could say it from the parking lot. Then for some reason, I went into teacher mode and chewed the guys out myself. I told them we were there to teach the kids basketball and sportsmanship. What were they teaching their kids by sitting up there complaining. Then I told them if they wanted to yell and scream there were plenty of games on TV so they could go home and yell at the TV because we were finished listening to it. All the time, about 4 fans sitting around these guys were nodding their heads and saying "that's right". I was actually, almost mad for the first time ever on the floor. Anyway, the rest of the afternoon, we heard absolutely nothing from the crowd except encouragement for the players. The two guys I chewed out actually stayed and kept their mouths shut. After the tournament, when I went to another site to get paid, all of the organizers were patting me on the back and telling me they were very glad someone finally took care of that sort of thing. Again, I know it wasn't the most professional way to handle the situation, but I just kind of went off. It would never happen in a real game, but it did make our day much better. Hopefully the embarassment stays with those guys for a while. Okay, this book of a post is pretty much over.
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