Last night was a game that was fun.
Somehow the assigner for high school, NAIA and JUCO were all on the same page and I'm working with a particular partner (the one who was called a racist) a lot during the second half of the season. Last night was our third game together in a row and we had a good game in New Orleans. The coaches were good to work for, the players played hard and the game was up and down. It probably helps tha
t this is a rivalry game, the two teams practice/play in the same gym because of the hurricane and there has been some trash talk that the coaches didn't want to escalate.
Oh, it was also nice to get paid twice as much too!
It was good to leave the gym with a better feeling than I did the other night.
One more thing. The coach from our game on Friday night was complaining about the fouls and he made the statement, "I will fix that on Monday." Of course my partner gave him a T. What the coach was referring to was his ability to scratch officials and/or rip and official in the ratings. Whoever thought of this was smoking something and this system sucks. It has been my experience that many high school coaches are neither knowledgeable enough or remain unbiased enough to give officials fair and realistic ratings. It becomes a weapon and a threat to control officials. Add the fact that they can complain without sending tape and you have a bad situation all the way around. I might ref my way out of high school basketball here, but I will do it with integrity and by doing the right thing for the game.