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This year I've been working hard at not allowing crap that goes on during the game to "rattle" me.
A couple of weeks ago I had a game with a relatively inexperienced partner. He had a bit of a goof up where he stopped live play to tell the visiting bench to be quiet and stop making comments. A few minutes later, I'm T table side when the visiting coach comes all the way across the halfcourt line right to me, grabs me by the arm (not forcefully). I swing around and start to put air into my whistle to T him up when I hear him say that he's trying to get our attention because his player has a bloody nose.
I tell him ok, but he has got to get back to his bench right now. I start walking him back a few feet, then turn around and go to the player to tell him to sub out.
As I was walking away from the coach, my partner is walking toward me to find out what's going on. The same coach, now for some reason irate because I've told him to get back in his box, is coming back out on the court.
My partner Ts him up. I hear the whistle and turn back around as my partner is starting to get into a bit of an argument with the coach. I separate them, tell my partner to go get the bloody nose kid out and get in position to administer the free throws.
Eventually we got everything settled, got the coach back in his box, got the player with the bloody nose out of the game, and started administering free throws. But the whole scenario got me a little rattled, in the sense that my mechanics for the entire rest of the quarter were jerky, I was not sharp on my whistle and my judgment and just in general I got taken out of the game, because I couldn't stop thinking about how I could have handled the situation differently.
Had a great talk from the varsity officials after the game. They told me they were particularly impressed with how calm I stayed in the whole situation, but that they could tell I let it rattle me.
That's something I'm working on now, when the shiz hits the fan, not letting it throw me off my game.
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