[tomegun]

Well, I don't always have it in my mouth and I didn't on a free throw last night. The girl - it always happens in girls games - shot the ball and they thought it was the last free throw. I verbally told them we had another shot and they stopped, but my partner, the T, was blowing his whistle unnecessarily. I didn't think anything of it.

Now for the rest of the story:

1. The officials doing the boys game ripped my two partners at halftime. I was kind of shocked and amused at how much they lit into them. They said things like, "Tom is the only one who looks like he wants to be here" and, "Tom had to go calm the coach down three times." It was kind of funny because it is something I would normally do, but not as harsh.
2. The partner who blew his whistle came up to me before the game and asked how I handle teams not coming out of the huddle after the first horn. He wanted to put the ball on the floor - something I don't really do. He also said he doesn't believe in advantage/disadvantage or RSBQ.
3. This partner is a big time volleyball official, or so I'm told. The best thing I can say about his basketball officiating is that he is a big time volleyball official, or so I'm told.
4. Two girls came into the game without him beckoning them in and he said, "Hey, nobody told you to come in." The gym was relatively quiet when he said this and the way he said it was pretty unprofessional. Later in the game, they did it again and he called a T. I'm not shy about calling Ts, but I don't know if I would do things the way he did it. The game was a 50 point blow out and he called it on the team that was winning.
5. After the game, he said, "Can I share something with you" in his gold-toothed, sarcastic way. He then proceeded to tell me to keep my whistle in my mouth during the first free throw. This stemmed from the fact that the other crew laid into them at halftime. Oh, I also laid into him during a scrimmage befor the season on a play where he let the ball handler get pushed out of bounds and called the out of bounds instead of the foul - I guess that ties in with his feelings about RSBQ. He also wasn't paying much attention to me during the pregame.
6. I found the whole night rather amusing and loved the fact that it was a girls game, 5pm here, and I could get home early - a 10 minute drive from this game. After his comments, I blazed to the house and reshuffled the blocked partner list.