To a slightly heavy ref: "At least move around some, you're tilting the court"

I was working a college game in my 4th year. I had a rookie and a veteran official. The vet was on a roll and had called a couple in a row against the home team. As we were about to inbound the ball, "Hey ref, get off your knees, you're blowing a great game!" The crowd laughed, rook and I laughed, a couple of players laughed, vet just shook his head.

Classic.

I've got two.....

I was working at a low level college tournament and was watching on my game off. One of the officials working had been regularly working in the PAC 10 and Big Sky for a few years. The coach of one team was extremely frustrated (maybe because his terrible team was down by 30+ points?!?) and did not like a foul call against his team by the PAC 10 official.

Coach looks at him after he reports and says "You don't do much college ball, do you?" Official looks him straight in the eye and says "Not at your level, coach".

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Several years ago, I was working a game at a Native American college. Small school, not very good. The gym is not any bigger that most HS gyms and the fans and students are right there close to the court. For this particular game, some of the Native American students had brought some sticks and drums and other noisemakers. After a few times that the noisemakers were used during play, one of my partners went to talk to the kid with the big bass drum. I see him talking to the kid and then turn around and head back to the court with a big grin on his face. Here is the conversation between my partner and the student:

Ref: You can't play that drum while the game is in progress.

Student: You can't tell me not to play my drum.

Ref: (puzzled) Why not?

Student: (with a straight face) It's part of my culture!

Those are both great. I still think it would have benefitted situation #2 if he had game mgmt talk to the kid. What would you really do in that situation? Artificial noisemakers are against the rules and so is growing marijuana but they can do that on the reservation.

Young girls game. Small gym. Small crowd. Girl on blue team gsts fouled and shoots two. If she hits both the game is tied and will clearly go to overtime. My partner is administering the throws and I'm near the crowd. All at once this little 6th grade voice yells to the shooter, "Go to your happy place!" That was a first.

Another young girls game. Visiting team shooting two. I'm near the crowd. A voice says very politely, "Hey ref can you move?" I don't face her but have my arm out for the second throw and reply with, "What?" "Can you move? That's my daughter shooting. I want to take her picture." I smiled and took two steps to the right.

Hey ref, can you stop blowing your whistle? My dog has to pee and I need to get home before he goes on the carpet.

This was said during this past weekend's tourn.

A packed gym, big boys varsity rivalry. Steal at half court and I bust my tail down the court, turn the corner and sprint to the lane. Defender, also sprinting at full speed, hits the dribbler's arm and trips and comes headfirst at me about thigh high. I manage to leap, tuck my 45 year old legs under me, and we miss each other. While in the air, I tweet, manage a 180 turn to land on both feet with a fist in the air and the bird dog out.

No fan comments. Just a standing ovation.

Anyone in the crowd holding a "10"?

Similar sitch for me but the defender hits my heel as I'm hauling @ss downcourt. My immediate thought was "there goes the rest of my season" - I spit the whistle, dove forward, slid about 10 feet or so, jumped up, gave the thumbs up to my parnter & continued the game. Actually got a nice hand out of it, along with a nice floor burn on my forearm and a hole burned in the knee of my pleated sansabelts.

__________________________________________________ _________You da man wisref2. I want your autograph. RR

Jeez, Dan - no wonder why this happened. You weren't wearing belted slacks! :rolleyes:

"Hey ref, your missing a good game."
....I know, they sent me here instead. I just love this one.

You want my autograph? Ummm, in that case I won't tell any of the stories that had different endings. Like working an entire quarter with a broken zipper.

I've told it before on here. But last season I had the night off and I was watching a game. One of the officials forgot to zip up and the student section caught it and started a "Zip your fly" chant.

Several years ago I was evaluating Mid American conference officials at Kent State University. The lead official called a player control foul against a Kent State player. He reports the foul and signals for the media timeout. Since there was no long switch this same official had to return to the baseline with the ball to administer the throwin following the TO. All during the TO he had to stand there and listen to the fans in the stands behind him who were letting him know they disliked the call. The teams returned to the floor and immediatly after the 2nd horn to end the TO the stands became deathly quiet and a lone fan stood up a shouted...

"If you don't know the difference between a block or charge then blow your whistle and raise your hand."

The official smiled, blew his whistle, raised his hand and administered the inbound. What else could he do?