Bad newbie story

[mplagrow]

I've seen a few guys post rough start stories, and it makes me wish I had a forum like this to 'cry in my beer' to about 10 years ago when I started officiating. I've got a pretty unique first-year ref story, wonder how you'd handle it or if you've had anything like it.

Boys' 8th grade, team A was from an all-black inner city school. I was known to them, they contacted me to ref. Team B was a suburb school, all white, they also contacted a ref, so I'd never worked with him before.

Three quarters go by, and 'their' official seemed to really have it in for team A--very lopsided calling. The large contingent of black fans were getting angry with the one sided calling. It all comes to a head when the ball went OOB on his sideline, he paused for three seconds, then awarded the ball to team B.

Team A's coach, near me, says, "If he wasn't sure, shouldn't he have called a jump ball???" I asked him if he'd like to talk about it to the other ref, and he said yes, so I told him there was a question. He went to the bench, and coach A asked him the same question (while seated on the bench). BAM! Technical. Coach says, "For what??" BAM! Two T's, leave the gym!

Coach gathers his cool, straightens his tie, and walks out calmly. As play continued, coach walked back in and sat in the back row of the bleachers. Ref stops the game, yells at him, "YOU HAVE TO LEAVE THE GYM!" Coach again gathers his cool and walks out the door. Fans are yelling and screaming, ready to riot, and now this takes the cake: he tells me, "You go quiet those fans down!" I told him he made the call, he can quiet them down. He got angry at me and told me I'm supposed to back his call! Not knowing what to do, I made a poor choice--finished the game and called everything I could the other way to balance it out. In retrospect, I think I should have put my whistle down and told him it was his game now!

I am not making this up. Yes I still ref!

PS-This was resolved with meetings between staff from both of these (sigh) Christian schools. Ultimately it was decided that neither of us would ref between these schools again. Although the black school lost by one point that night, they met again in a tournament with different refs. The black school won by about 30.