[A Pennsylvania Coach]

Still thinking about this one a week later....

Youth "travel" league in our area, "Division 2" (5th grade) boys. Late in season, home team (12-1) trails visiting team (8-5) for most of the game. After a strong fourth quarter comeback, home team is still down 36-35 with 6 seconds left. I'm lead, home team player drives from my side and misses a final shot at horn. Ball kicks to visiting team player on opposite side who "spikes" the ball touchdown-style directly in front of my partner, who pins him.

I ran over and asked him if he was sure before he went to the table but there really was no turning back. He went to the table and I told the home team who was lining up to shake hands to hold on a minute. He reported it, we switched, and I asked the home coach for a shooter. The visiting coach got my ear for a moment and in this situation, I gave him a few seconds of attention. He tried to tell me the game was over, and I told him "the game isn't over until we leave the visual confines of the gym" and he looked at me like I was crazy. (In these games, we just stash a sweatshirt and keys behind the scorer so it's not like we run off the court into a locker room somewhere when the final horn goes off.) Although I could certainly feel for the coach I had my partner's back for a call that was correct at least by rule.

We got the shooter to the line and I've never secretly rooted so hard for a kid to miss at least one. Since the home team was probably 6-for-20 from the line in the game it seemed likely, but of course he hit them both and the game was over, home 37, visitor 36.

We then hustled over, grabbed our stuff, and exited. It was a tiny elementary school gym and I guess in hindsight we could've gone out a side door but we went out the main door and had some hysterical comments shouted at us on the way out, including a guy who was outside when we got outside, with his daughter, who was cursing at us but not really threatening in any way. We made it out quickly and without incident.

I spoke to both my partner and the travel league assignor on the phone while driving home. My partner says if he could've rewound time five seconds he would've passed on it, and I can understand that. Kid spikes ball directly in front of you, reaction is to call a T. With a few seconds to think about it, you can probably turn your head and run away from it without a problem.

The assignor backed us up, saying that he has been pushing sportsmanship in the league for a couple years now. The regular season just ended and I think I'll see the playoff brackets later today. The loss may have knocked out the losers, but probably not. (Not sure about tiebreakers in this league.)

So, what would you have done?