[Mark Padgett]

I was told this story when I joined the board of our local kids rec league 18 years ago. It seems that about two years before that, we had a 3rd grade boys game which started on a Saturday morning at 8:15 and the two scheduled refs didn't show. This was before everyone had cell phones and they didn't have access at the school to the area where there was a pay phone, so they couldn't call the ref scheduler before the game started. As per league policy, there was a board member at the game. He decided to referee, even though he'd never done it before. He didn't have a whistle, so when he wanted to stop play, he threw his open hand in the air and yelled "STOP". It worked OK, especially since games at that level were (and still are) running clock.

The game was over at about 9:00 and he had someone drive over to a nearby drug store which opened then (this was before we had any 24/7 Walgreen's in this area) and buy a cheap whistle (no lanyard available). The same guy used a pay phone (remember those?) at the store to try to call the ref scheduler, but he was working a game at a gym. The board member used the whistle for another game, and refs finally showed up to work game three. They had no idea what happened to the guys who were supposed to work the first two games.

The board member who worked those games talked about it for years as an example of how you can improvise when necessary.

Even though it was "just" a 3rd grade game, I'd hate to try to work it without a whistle.