[A Pennsylvania Coach]

First, the part that interests you guys. The two varsity officials we had last night were two that I hadn't had a very good opinion of. One threatened me my first year "keep it up, Coach, it only takes one from me to get you run out of here" and the other is usually very indecisive.

They surprised me last night, however. One of our dads was being a loudmouth so the official stopped the game, had a chat with the game manager, and the game manager went up to talk to him. Took care of it. A few minutes later on an inbound setup (before handing the ball), our opponent pushed our player in the back, and our player gave one of those "get off me" moves sort of pushing and pulling her arm away at once. He saw both things, and instead of calling something, he went to them and talked to them and kept it under control.

Before the game, the other coach and I were talking about how it seems like games have been called tighter in our league as of late (perception? reality? I don't know) and how we both like it better when the officials let them play. Of course, we both have big strong post players! Well these guys let us play. Only 26 combined fouls for the game.

Now the part that interests me. We were down 12-0 early and 17-7 after one quarter. We got it together and led 34-30 for almost five full minutes in the fourth quarter. They cut it to 2 with 33 seconds left. We missed a 1 & 1, rebounded, missed another 1 & 1, rebounded, and traveled. They had it with 20 seconds left, got three decent looks, and missed them all. We are 3-1!

One more part that interests this forum. When they scored to cut it to 2, their coaches called for a timeout. I can see the scoreboard and hear the whistles on the tape, so I think I can accurately describe what happened. The ball went through around :36, the timeout whistle came at about :34.5, and the clock kept running. There was a second, louder whistle (I guess he saw that it hadn't stopped) and then the clock stopped at :32.2. The official came in our huddle to tell me that it was at :33.8 when he hit the whistle, so they were resetting it. When we broke the huddle, it was at :33.3? I asked him if it should be at :32.8, because if he saw it at :33.8, doesn't he have to allow one second of lag time? He said no and we went with :33.3.

Oh, and check this out. Even though this is the 41st year my school has had a team, they've been perenially bad and coaches haven't stuck around long. One of my players went through the yearbooks in the library and told me the CAREER coaching wins record at our school is 18. This is my third year, and this was win #15. This pales compared to the dean of our league who has something like 475, but it'd be pretty cool to be my school's winningest coach.

I gotta tell you guys this, because if I tell anybody else, it sounds like I'm bragging!