[Mark Padgett]

Filled in for a 5th grade girls game last night. I had not worked with this partner in about 4 or 5 years. She has a tendency to call a lot of ticky tack fouls, but last night took the cake. I tossed to start the game, A1 hit the ball back to A2. B2 put her hands up to guard and TWEET! During the game, she constantly called shooting fouls when the defender had all ball and there was no body contact. She called at least 15 offensive fouls for the ball handler "pushing away the arm" of the defender or something similar. Not only did she call that many fouls, she had to give an explanation of almost every one: "White, 23, for putting her hands on the hip of the dribbler and not letting her change direction" and so on.

The home team won 36-26 and I don't even want to know how many free throws were attempted. We were in double bonus both teams both halves. Six girls fouled out, three on each team, so I guess it "evened out". Oh yeah, she called a ton of violations, too, including travel on virtually every jump stop.

It got to the point where I heard spectators saying things like, "It only took her 10 seconds to call one this time. I win the pool".

Both coaches approached me a few times during breaks to see if there was anything I could do. Now you may be wondering why I didn't discuss these things with her during the game. Let's just say she is not very responsive to constructive criticism.

BTW - I called seven fouls in the whole game and I don't think I missed any in my area. The game took almost 2 hours. I called the assignor and told him that if he ever thinks about scheduling me with her again, I'd rather be shot.