[stripes]

I received the following email from a friend (who was a good referee until his continued knee problems forced him to retire). He is the coach of a youth (13 yo) team in Las Vegas.

1. We win the tip, our very fast, 6 foot 13 year old sprints to the post. I am telling PG which play to run when before our guy walks the ball past halfcourt we get a 3 in the key call. I was perplexed but told my guy to stay out of the key.

2. We are moving the ball around when my wing guy runs in the key to cut through lane and see’s a shot go up. (I just happened to be watching him cut) when the ball bounces off the rim and my guy gets called for 3 in the key. Ref comes down I ask doesn’t the shot mean 3 in the key is no longer valid? He didn’t even look at me. I moved on.

3. Player misses a shot, our 6 footer jumps straight up, arms straight above his head and was actually jumped backwards a slight bit and pulls down board. Foul, over the back. My guy was confused, I told him to keep playing hard. I ask ref if he pushed off or something and player wants to know what he did, he said “You saw it, don’t act like it wasn’t a foul” I said, “I am not acting, it wasn’t a foul, kid was straight up and down from where the guy boxed him out to.” I caught that he didn’t really want to be there so I just moved on.

4. 6 Footer kid on my team gets ball in the post, nice move to the hoop, literally gets hit in the head so hard his glasses flew off and he had a cut on the side of his eye. Misses the shot and had an injury time out. I thought the kids dad was going to kill someone but I calmed him down and we moved on.

5. Little Billy on my team drives to the hoop, misses the shot, my big man, same guy from last play takes it up and they are hanging all over him. No call. The ref comes down, I ask them to please watch the contact on the play and he responds, “Coach, that kid should be good enough to play through contact because he is taller than the other kids” OK, well at least you admit, was my response. So I moved on.



Later in the game, and my frustration was mounting the other team had 2 fast breaks on my end of the court where my guys got a way with murder and the refs were walking up the court like they didn’t care. My blood was boiling because I knew they weren’t going to be there when my guys had a fast break. I finally turned to the guy in charge, who is a longtime high school official down here and is a “crew chief” they call them and just said, “I can deal with missed calls and unnecessary 3 in the key and stuff like that, but I can’t take having officials walking up and down the court” He agreed but ended up leaving or going to the other gym and never said anything to me. Well unknown to them but little Billy’s Dad is a high school varsity coach. Helps out a lot with practices. So my guy comes down the court on a fast break and gets a shove from behind, misses layup and there are the guy that should be lead and getting position walking behind half court calling it out of bounds. I simply said, “did you see the hand in the back and choose not to call it?” He said “there was no contact” I said “There was contact, if you had made any effort whatsoever to get up to where I was standing or in front of the play you would have seen the foul. As it is that kid that hasn’t scored yet this year didn’t get the call” At that point he looked at me a little funny like, you have done this. He then walked past me while the ball was transitioning, not even a slight jog. I then just let him have it telling him to hustle so the other team doesn’t get screwed on a play that he can’t see. Got my T at that point. He came over and said “I know you think you know what you are talking about but I don’t think you do. You need to sit the rest of the game and just remember one thing, these are little kids and it’s not like these games matter” I just looked at him and said, “Dude, I don’t know what level of basketball you have worked, nor do I know your goals or motivation level but you never know who is watching so be careful what you say” Little Billy’s dad was standing right behind me when he said that. Little Billy’s dad went straight to “Crew Chief guy and asked if they were Varsity officials. 1 was and the other, forntunately the one staying out of trouble but not exactly hustling himself was first year varsity guy. The coach looked at him and just said, “If you ever show up to one of my games with that guy, I will be thrown out in the first 5 minutes.



After the game, I saw crew chief in the corner of the guy just letting this guy have it. The dude left and crew chief reffed the next game. I don’t think he was planning to work any games either.



I honestly said so few to these guys because I didn’t think they were worth it but man did that dude piss me off on Saturday. My wife kept looking at during the game telling me to calm down, I wasn’t saying anything or being loud, in fact I was telling my assistant to shut up and even telling him on half of his complaints the officials got it right or didn’t need to call something. I think I pissed him off too. It is just frustrating when guys can’t even hustle a little. I don’t expect sprinting speed but act like you care. They get paid $30 bucks a game which isn’t bad either.