Why did I take this game?

[Mark Padgett]

Yesterday afternoon, a friend who is an assignor for a classic 5th through 8th grade league called me and asked if I could fill in at the last minute for two games. It seems one of his refs got the flu all of a sudden. Without realizing what I was getting into, I said yes.

The first game turned out to be 5th grade girls. At the end of Q1, the score was 13-0. The final was 45-2. It was the ugliest game I have worked in years. The winning team had 4 girls taller than the tallest girl on the other team. The losing team had no one who could bring the ball up court whether against pressure or not. The losing coach never said one word of instruction to his girls. They committed 10+ fouls in each half just due to sloppyness.

If I had a heart, I would have felt sorry for them.

Had a really weird play in the second game (8th grade boys). With two seconds to go in the first half, A1 is at the line to shoot two. He makes the first. He makes the second and B1 takes the ball out of the bottom of the net and starts dribbling upcourt without taking the ball OOB. Not only that, when he starts dribbling, the clock starts and the horn goes off. The players just think the half is over and start for the bench. I was on the baseline counting five seconds. I inform the scorer that there is a five second inbound violation on team B, that we are putting two seconds back on the clock and it will be team A's ball on the baseline under their own basket.

Both coaches just shrugged and we set it up that way. Team A scored off the inbound play just before the horn. They wound up winning by two. Ouch!