[Rich]

Last night I had what could only be described as a howler monkey.

Varsity girls. Visiting team goes down 12-0 in the first few minutes. Every call or non-call was accomanied by loud disagreement by the visiting team head coach. Within the first 4 minutes, my partner and I each had gone over to the bench and told the coach to knock it off (not in those words, of course). My partner talked to him twice, matter of fact. He didn't coach his team at all during the quarter, but had not done anything that clearly warranted a technical after my partner's second visit.

After the first quarter, I saw the coach staring in my direction. Working 2-person, so I was on the block opposite his bench. I didn't pay attention to him. After the first horn, my team was already out, so I went to the division line to start the quarter. At this point, the coach shouted across the court, "It's 4 to 0," with four fingers on one hand and a fist on the other held above his head with a voice that projected quite a bit.

So there you have it, my first technical in over a calendar year. He didn't get it on that, it was cumulative.

And that was the end of the coach loudly officiating for the rest of the game. Of course, he didn't exactly return to coaching, either, preferring to sit there and do nothing at all while his team lost by 30.

Oh, I forgot halftime. At halftime, the coach turned as he was walking out and said, "12 to 4. You need to give us a break." It was so pathetic I couldn't bring myself to run him.

It's amazing the number of people who think you should even up the fouls rather than consider that the home team is 10-1 and just quite a bit better than the visiting team.