[just another ref]

Last week I watched a game where twice (once for each team) a time out was granted to a player who called it as he went out of bounds. In both cases (one was extremely close, the other was not) the player signaled while in the air, but the whistle was blown after the player had landed out of bounds. My interpretation has always been that the request must be recognized and granted by the official before the ball becomes dead, which it clearly was in these cases when the player landed out of bounds. How does everyone else handle this?