Fun but long night

[Welpe]

Worked four 8th grade boys tournament games last night, three of which were decided by a couple points. A few high lights:

• Two players ran full speed into each other at half court while going after a lose ball. The came from different directions and I deemed it incidental. One of the player's father loses his mind, comes down from the stands and starts screaming about needing to protect his boy, yada yada. The guy seemed like he was about to come onto the floor when the AD corralled him and escorted him out. My partner thought I should have had a foul.

• Same game as above, home team player goes up for an uncontested layup. While he is airborne, a visiting defender comes in and clotheslines him across the head. I immediately come up with intentional but am thinking flagrant. I ended up letting my partner talk me out of flagrant. Should have gone flagrant.

• Head coach in one of the games loved him some sarcasm. I talk him down a couple of times but in the third quarter I finally have enough and said "Coach, that's enough. No more." His response was to scream back at me "WELL I'VE SEEN ENOUGH!" And aI almost got through the year without T'ing up a coach too.

• Last game of the night, called a 5 second closely guarded violation on the visiting team. A fan yells out "You need to learn how to call 5 seconds, BLUE!" That actually made me laugh. The coach complained "He was three feet away!!" Ah vindication.

It was some of the best basketball I've worked all year but that was too many games. Thankfully I had a partner not only show up but a partner that was pretty good, too. I got to the gym at 4:00 and didn't leave until 10:00.