After refereeing for so long, you hear some of the funniest arguements that make absolutely no sense.. Any of us that have been ref'ing for any amount of time have heard the 'ol "you can't call that" or "you can't do that".. with a retort of "well, I just did".. but I'd love to hear some of your classics.

One of mine was during a free throw. I had a player standing at the just inside the three point line at the wing. I called a lane violation, and he told me that he was parallel to the third spot on the lane, so he was OK.

Ya almost have to give it to em when they come up with some of the most ridiculous arguements of all-time !

LD

I like to tell coaches that they're half right, but I'm in the other half. ;)

I like the one I learned from here... when I used it the coach looked happy, but perhaps a bit confused.

He thought that the arrow should be his. (We correctly awarded it to the other team.) I informed him that he will get the next 2 out of 3 arrows.

The ones that amuse me are based on how the rules were 5, or 10, or even 20 years ago.

Lack of Action!!

Force Out!!

That's up and down!

How about change of status?

I actually worked a kids game 3 years ago and a very tenured official cancelled the time out I recognized because of change of status.

Actually, come to think of it....no one argued?!?

Player: Ref, If you keep calling all those fouls none of us will be left to play.

Ref: If you'd stop committing all the fouls, you wouldn't foul out.

Before the throw-in to start the second half.

Player: I don't know...that's a lot of fouls for just the first half.

Me: I know! If we could get these guys to settle down and play ball, this would go a lot better.

Player: Yeah, you're right. I'll settle 'em down.

Me: *smile*

This happened to me at a 7th grade game
Coach: Foul count is 6 to 1 against me
Me: Thanks for the reminder. I could have missed the bonus.

Quotes
 

Coaches daughter is running up the court not listening to the coach hollaring at her. He yells as I go by " Betty if I wanted someone out there on the court not listening to me I would have your mother out there instead" I stopped and started to laugh.

Everyone's had someone complaining about the foul count, but a couple of years ago I had a coach complaining that the foul count was "6 to 4.....6 to 4!!!!!" I guess we were supposed to have 6 to 6 or something. I guess he just needed something to be unhappy about.

I had a coach ask me once after a travel call. "How did he travel?"

I looked at him and said coach there is only one way to travel. He then went ballistic, after I got him calmed down I said "coach the only way to travel is to pick-up your pivot foot and put it back down." He still didn't believe me.:confused::confused::confused:

Actually, there is another way to travel---pick up the pivot foot and then start a dribble.

How 'bout dragging the pivot foot?

Actually had a stupid argument from another official last night - reffing "class" getting the "old dogs" ready for the switch to three-person mechanics...two boys teams scrimmaging, A3 has break-away lay-in which hits the backboard, ball is outside the cylinder and still going up when B5 swats it away...no call from either C or T, and I say "good no-call"...other guy standing there starts to argue it should be BI or goaltending...even after I show him the diagram in the Simplified and Illustrated book, he continues to rant that he will always call it BI in his games and that I don't know anything...so sometimes it's not the coaches that aren't so bright...

7/8th grade game
7th grade game
Coach: TIMEOUT! TIMEOUT! (the ball was live)

Me: Coach, I can't do that you don't have the ball.

Coach: I thought you had one timeout you could use when you didn't have the ball and it was live?

Let's just say I didn't reply cause I didn't know how!!

What would you of said to him?