[bainsey]

Last week, I had a middle school doubleheader, girls then boys.

A number of officials verbally dump on middle school assignments, particulary those with no Y chromosones. That can come back to bite you very easily.

On this day, these girls knew what they were doing on the floor. The play was solid, a little physical, but still well in control. I had nothing but praise for this assignment.

The next night, I helped out a friend who's contracted to run the jumbotron at the University of Maine ("Black Bear Vision"). Normally, he gets some college kids to run the floor cameras, but during semester break, I'll grab a camera and a headset. The headset is for communication among the booth and the three cameramen. Most of the verbage is instruction, but we also bust each others' chops. (Familiarity breeds contempt.)

The other cameramen typically aren't basketball fans, so there's some grumbling when the score isn't that high. (I call it good defense; they say I'm full of it.) When discussion turned to games I had recently worked, I sang praises for the middle school girls' game I served the day before.

It's a good thing I did, because little did I know, working in the booth was an assistant coach from that very game. I wasn't aware of it until I went into the booth that night, and there he was, wrapping up. We exchanged pleasanties, and talked about what's next for the season. The discussion was genuine, yet it hit me like a ton of bricks that I'm glad I didn't fall into the trap of speaking ill of what some consider to be a undesireable assignment.

Simply put, you never know who is listening, so try to keep it upbeat. If the game you work isn't up to a certain level, leave it with "those things happen." It's still basketball.