My Confession ...

[BillyMac]

Bless me father for I have sinned. Yesterday I was the referee and I started a girl’s game with a boy’s basketball. Played entire first period with the boy’s ball until a player mentioned the problem at the first intermission.

We had a highly respected official do this thirty-plus years ago (first year of smaller girl's basketball). When he passed a few years ago we all talked about it at his wake.

[Raymond]

I worked my first and hopefully only girls basketball game of the season last night as part of a doubleheader.

82-8 (boys game was 50-46, so it's not like it's 2 mismatched school).

Kept track of every held ball, and there were at least 10 of them, without checking the arrow.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[Mark T. DeNucci, Sr.]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Bless me father for I have sinned. Yesterday I was the referee and I started a girl’s game with a boy’s basketball. Played entire first period with the boy’s ball until a player mentioned the problem at the first intermission.

We had a highly respected official do this thirty-plus years ago (first year of smaller girl's basketball). When he passed a few years ago we all talked about it at his wake.

Do not feel bad. I have two stories to tell.

Story #1:

Early 1990s and I am officiating a women's jr. college game at Owens Community College with an esteemed member of this Forum: Daryl H. Long.

Back then OCC played their men's and women's game at one end of the student recreation center. The Court was at the far end of the building from the building enterance. The bleachers (which faced the building enterance), Scorer/Timer Table, and Benches were all on the same side of the Court.

So as not to delay the game in case the Game Ball ended up flying down to the far end of the building, approximately, five feet off of the Side Line Opposite the Table at the Division Line Extened, a folding chair was placed and a basketball was placed on the chair.

And it happened approximately three minutes into the 1st Half, the Game Ball indeed to flying down to the other end of the building. We grabbed the Ball from the chair and proceed to continue the game. We continued to play with this second Ball and OCC built up a 16 point lead (OCC drained about 5 3-pointers with the Ball) with just over two minutes left in the 1st Half when an OCC Player went to the FT Line for 2 FTs. We bounced the Ball to her and their first words out of her mouth was: "Hey! This is a guy's Ball!"

Our faces turned red! We grabbed the Ball (with which we started the game) off of the chair: It was a Women's Ball! And finished the Game with it. And OCC proceeded to get blown out by 20 points.


Story #2:

The old geezers in the Forum will know who Sally Bell is. Sally and I are long time friends. A few years after the aforementioned game Sally and I and a group of other female women's college officials were trading war stories over lunch at the IABBO Fall Rules Interpreters Meeting and I confessed to my screw up in Story #1. Sally looked and me and exclaimed: "Mark! Couldn't you tell the difference in size from just holding the Ball?" And all I could say was: "Sally, I can't even palm a women's ball let alone a men's ball." And we all had a good laugh.


MTD, Sr.

[rbruno]

Has anyone ever noticed that there are 29.5 " balls that feel "small" in your hands? I have small hands and can sometime palm these balls but could never palm most 29.5" balls. Some actually feel like ballons but others could easily be mistaken for 28.5" ball.

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by rbruno

Has anyone ever noticed that there are 29.5 " balls that feel "small" in your hands?

It's the "new" synthetic covering.