[shishstripes]

I must admit I hate seeing officials late to games but also understand there may be circumstances that may cause an official to be late (traffic because of an accident, not sure of directions, limited parking, etc.) Was working a state tournament and two different individuals were late to their games because they didn't pay attention to game times and were up in the hospitality room stuffing their faces.

One of them was my partner for a major semi-final game, he came out with under 6 minutes left in warmups. I had done the captains meeting by myself at 12 (as we were told to do at 12, not by myself). Absolutely embarrassing. When I went to check the books at 10, both coaches came to me (both knew me from previous tournaments) at the same time and asked if I was working alone, I assured them I wouldn't.

Fact was, he didn't call a very good game I felt because he wasn't prepared mentally and hadn't stretched (but he was a young and athletic). It was a good thing we had worked together the night before and we did a good pre-game otherwise it could have been uglier than it was.