[Mark Padgett]

Well, the tournament here in Portland is ending later today and I got to work what I think was the 3rd grade title game. Big whoop. Actually, the kids enjoyed themselves and worked hard, which is the point. A team from Seattle beat a team from I don't know where, 32-24. The coaches yelled at the kids but not very much at the officials, which was a big change from the other games I worked at this tourney.

However, the parents were worse than horrible. I was really unaware that foul calls against a third grader would result in that kid losing a D1 scholarship, but from the comments we heard from the crowd, you would have bet that's just what would happen. I'm sure I heard the comment, "CALL THE FOUL" at least 1,000,000,000 times - and that was just in the first quarter.

Hmmm, let's see - if everything someone yelled is true, then I am blind, I stink, I'm an idiot, I don't know my a$$ from a hole in the ground (which doesn't matter because I couldn't find it with both hands anyway), I don't have a clue, I'm a homer (if they meant Simpson, that would be cool), I suck and I'm the worst.

Hey - at least I'm not "bad".

Oh yeah, my partner is even worse than me, poor guy.

I found out that yesterday, one of the female officials had to be escorted off the court out to her car because of some fans (both male and female) harassing her after a game. Fortunately, no one touched her.