[drothamel]

This is one that I never got around to posting. . .

I worked an AAU 14U boys tournament two weekends ago. I only did 4 games. The first game was flawless, so I should have known something was amiss. In the 3rd quarter of game 2, a A1 commits a foul on B1 in the act of shooting. The coach for B1 did not like the amount of contact, but there was nothing intentional or flagrant about it, and neither player reacted poorly to it. Well, while B1 is on the line, coach for B is saying some stuff. A1 thinks that coach B is talking either to or about him, or both- so he says something to coach B. Well, now A1's father gets involved. He comes down out of the stands and proceeds to walk along the sideline, passed the table, and is pointing his finger at coach B telling him to stop talking to his kid, etc. So my partner and I have to try and keep these two separated, get everyone calmed down, and try to get in touch with tournament personnel. It ended up that everyone went back to their repsective corners and calmed down for the rest of the game, which team A ended up winning in overtime.

In game 3, some guy approaches me and my partner on the floor in between the 1st and 2nd quarters and starts telling us about 3 seconds (of course, what else would fans talk about). So I tell him, "You need to go back into the stands, NOW." He seemed kinda surprised, but he apologized and went back into the stands. At halftime, he comes up to us again and apologizes and says that he didn't realize he couldn't do that, and he is really a nice guy. "That may be true," I say, "but we don't know that when you come out of the stands. And if this had been a HS game with police present, I would have had you taken out immediately." The guy was really apologetic. A bit stupid, albeit, but suffuciently sorry.

Never a dull moment at the AAU games!