Wrong ball in WCC semi?

[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

I am retelling mt tale of woe for the benefit of newer members of the Forum who may have heard the first fifteen (🤣&#129315 times I have told.

I started officiating in 1971 and officiated women's college from 1974 to 2008. Daryl H. Long That is his username in the Forum; he no longer comments since he had a very serious stroke in 2016.) and I officiated many women's together over the years.

We had a women's JC game in the early 1990s at Owen's Comm. Coll. OCC, back then had a very good wome's program, and its basketball court was at the far end of an open multi-purpose building. The bleachers, Team Benches, and Table were on the wall side of the Court with a folding chair with a spare Game Ball sitting on it in case the Ball being used went flying down the other end of the building. Which might happen once or twice a game but not as often as one might think.

We start the game and a couple of minutes into the game the Ball goes flying down to the other end of the building. We grab the Ball on the chair and go our Mmerry way while some retrieves the errant Ball and puts it on the chair.

We play until late in the 1st Half with the "chair ball" and OCC is up by 10 or 12 points (including making 3 or 4 33-Point FGs) when an OCC player goes to the FT Line and she looks at the Ball and says: "Hey! This is a guy's ball!" And sure enough it was.

We grabbed the "original game" Ball off the chair, made sure that it was a women's Ball, and finished the game. OCC went on to lose the game by 10 or 12 points, 😅.

I cannot tell the difference by sight very well and cannot palm the 28.5 inch ball. I have to visually inspect the ball to see 28.5 on it.

MTD, Sr.