Working first game of my season last evening - Girls Varsity.

About midway through 4th quarter (game is way lopsided - home team is winning by 25. We've called enough fouls for two games but the players won't quit. Girls, what can one expect. Both coaches have been very agreeable and peaceful - the way we like it.)... anyway...

I'm Lead. As the shooter pivoted toward the basket the defender forcefully lowered her arms across both of the shooters arms. Tweet. Facing away from me, the defender fell to her knees and slapped both hands on the floor and as I'm reaching for my whistle (thinking this might be a time for an unsporting T) she gets up and untucks her shirt and heads for her bench. Now I'm thinking that this might be her 5th foul. I look at the scoreboard and sure enough it shows 5 fouls for her. I continue out to the center of the court to make my report to the table. The scoreboard operator shows that it is 5 fouls. "Is that 5 fouls?" The home book is shaking his head yes for five fouls. The player is already setting on the bench. I look to the visiting coach and say that must be 5 and he politely asks "I've got 30 seconds right?" I answer, "Absolutely." He gives me a sub in 5 seconds and we go back to shoot the free throws. We shoot the 1st and I look to the table. The visiting coach is now on the wrong side of the table and angrily asking for a time-out. "Do you want a time-out?" No response; he has turned and headed back to his bench. The table is beckoning me. I blow my whistle and head for the table. Coach is now coming back yelling that his player "doesn't have 5 fouls she has 2 fouls! Check with the book before you tell me a player has 5 fouls." That's what I did. The score keepers are now saying that they had incorrectly told me the player had 5 fouls and that some how the scoreboard tally was also wrong. So I asked the coach "Do you want her back in?" But he was (surprisingly) so angry that I'm not sure he even heard me. So we continued with the current players. His two foul player subsituted back in another minute or so later.

The confusion may have been that fact that this player has a sister on the team also and they look remarkably similar. Maybe the home book was giving fouls to the wrong player... maybe the visiting team was pulling a fast one.

After it was all done, it was .... Hey! I did what I was supposed to do (besides having my partner report the 5th foul - new mechanic) but there was nothing I did wrong... was there?

Anyone else have weird stuff like that happen yet this season? I thought it was funny after all was said and done.

First off I'm glad I didnt pay you the 200 bucks for that game...

The only think I could have thought was that good game presence you know how many fouls each plaer has and who is in trouble... but if there were too many fouls I know you would not want to take your shoes off to keep track.

I would go with the official book. If she has 5 she has 5 and done. She knew it!.. dont care what the visiting book has, or anything else. Unless you know the home book was mucked go with it,

Tony, you know you did the right thing, and that it could have happened to anyone. The coach was out to lunch, along with his whole team, and he's trying to blame you. If the player herself thought she had 5, I can't see how the coach could blame you.

Come-on Kelvin. An experience like that... $200 would have been cheap.

I got paid mileage too! Depending upon where you would have come from you might have come out ahead! $15 for the first 50 miles and then $0.25 for each mile after that.

Steve was looking forward to meeting you too.

Yeah, girls. Sheesh. They shouldn't even be playing basketball, anyway! I keep a couple chained up in my kitchen baking pies.

Go directly to your assignor and turn back all your girls' games immediately.

I think the table is the problem. So many times the table "thinks" they know what we are going to call and it is already in their mind before we report. There are a lot of scorekeepers that have their head down writing when we report! If they had simply listened to you and made sure before telling you it was 5 fouls this could have saved you some trouble.

Absolutely. I make it a point to not begin reporting until I have eye contact with the official bookkeeper. And some games, when it is a young bookkeeper, I may stand there for 10 seconds until one of the other people at the table will nudge the official/home book to have him take notice.

He's scribbling away and I'm standing there waiting and finally the gym gets quiet and eventually the bookkeeper will realize that I have some information that is specifically for him... Look at me, because I'm not going to talk until you do.

This situation was definitely the fault of the bookkeeper and scoreboard operator. They told me and they told the coach that they were the ones that had said the player had 5 fouls - I was only reporting of what they had informed me.

I was just really surprised at the coach's response... he had calmly been getting beat for 30 minutes of game time and suddenly exploded.

Oh well!

DTTB-->

I'm with you on that one, brother. If it's a bookkeeper I don't recognize, I will tell them before the game to look to us for those reports. If, during the game, they are banging away on the book, I'll just stand there and wait, wait, wait, until we have eye contact to report the foul. After about 7 ro 8 seconds, most folks on the bench and in the stands infer what's going on, and it's usually the last time the 'keeper makes that mistake.

Sounds like the coach needed someone to direct his anger towards after most of a game of getting beat. You got assigned the role of punching bag.

You did yer duty.
The coach was moody.
You had class,
but dealt with a coach.
mick

Now if you worked in Michigan,(where the coaches appraise you) you could count on a crappy rating.You did nothing wrong, probably called a solid game, but this is what the coach will remember when the paperwork time comes.

Sister or twin or not, you do have different numbers on each player, right? I could understand a mistake of one in the player's foul total, but THREE! I don't buy it.

Ooooh neither did I
 

Well, I guess I did buy it. In my opinion the girl acted pretty convincing that she had 5 fouls. But I could really care less if she didn't because there were only a couple of minutes left in the game and they were loosing by 25-30 points at that time. And this girl probably couldn't score 25 points in two games let alone a few minutes.

Coach, if you want her back in we can do that. What ever makes you feel good. Heaven knows you have been very polite up until you pulled this fast one over me.

But Dan, you are exactly right. The bookkeeper shouldn't be putting anything into the book until I give him a number... not a face, a partial physical description, or a close relative but a number.

Hey it's over; a bigger and better game Wednesday!

Kelvin??? It's a 5A conference game. How much will you bid? One of the coaches has an ignorant basta... I mean howler for an assistant. Come-on man! Chance to shine! Prove your mettle.

I'm working with our commissioner. OOOoooo I forgot about that . Maybe I better keep this game. Another 5A on Friday. Interested?

You know it would be so cool if a few of us could work games together. Wow! That would be neat. Someday, in another rainbow.... (Oz was on TBS last night. Of course my kids had to watch that.) :D

Several years ago around here an 8th grade girls team had identical twins. Their numbers were 24 and 42. Late in a close game, one of them committed a foul. Official went to report it. 24 blue. Coach said, "No, no, you mean 42 blue!
24 was over here, not even close to the play." (The coach was right. It was one of those where the official made a simple mistake, and everyone knew it except him and his partner.) The official happened to be a young guy without much experience, and the argument blew his mind. He paused, looking from one girl to the other. He went over to have a brief conference with his partner, an older more experienced guy. I am sure his partner must have said something like, "You made the call, I didn't see it. You will have to decide who the foul was on." He stuck with the original call, but to make matters worse, it was 24's
5th foul. Uh oh. Well, blue went on to win the game. All's well that ends well, right? Wrong. When the game was over the twins' dad went over to the opposing coach and said,"Well, we won, even though y'all cheated!" The coach was shocked. His only contribution to the situation was to suggest to the young official that he consult with his partner. Good idea, I thought.
I love this job.

Re: Ooooh neither did I
 

I hope that you meant the original Oz, and not the HBO series- Oz. :eek:

Btw, did you know that Chuck Elias was in the original movie? Yup,the Chuckster was one of the Munchkins! He evan had a line of dialogue all to hisself- the immortal <i>"Hey, Dorothy, care for a short one?"</i>