Funny you should mention that........ I was assigned to work the championship game of a small (4 team) girls tournament on Tuesday night. Smaller (2A) schools. Pretty laid-back tournament... the home team got bounced in the first round so the championship game was two teams who were quite a ways from home. Probably a total of 100 people in the stands. First half is pretty routine.... except that the white team's crowd is whining about everything. Even routine OOB calls. The blue team's crowd is absolutely perfect, just cheering their team and not having any negative comments. I am just laughing inside thinking, "this is one of the reasons that I do not help out with much girls ball anymore."
About halfway through the 3rd quarter, the ball goes out of bounds in front of my partner. Routine OOB. He correctly gives it to blue. White crowd (who is seated across from the play and all the way on the other end of the gym) goes ballastic. I have had enough.
I put my hand up to prevent my partner from putting the ball inbounds. I walk to the other end, stand right in front of the 50 fans of the white team, hit my whistle and say (in my parent voice), "let the players play, let the refs ref. We do not need comments on every call." The gym goes dead silent. I turn back around and walk to my position. I am thinking, "oh boy, you've done it now dummy - you're really gonna get it." I was expecting that one moron to yell, "well, call it right then!" as I walked away. Instead, I hear this quiet applause that gets louder and louder. I turn around and the blue section is clapping, including 5 of them who are standing while they applaud. Two girls of the WHITE team walk by me and say, "thank you."
I look at my partners and they are both smiling in disbelief. We never heard another word and the game went right down to the end as white missed a jumpshot at the end to lose by one.
Not sure I'd ever try that again....... The stars must have been perfectly aligned. :-)