Three Seconds

[just another ref]

I was young and ignorant (now I'm no longer young) I had an interesting 3 second call. (interesting, 3 second, normally a contradiction in terms) 8th grade boys game. Team A is behind by 2 with 8.9 seconds on the clock, ball out of bounds under their own basket. Team A's biggest kid, the biggest kid on the floor by far, stations himself squarely in the middle of the lane calling for the ball. Very little or no movement. Throw-in goes to the corner, the big kid turns but still doesn't move out of the middle of the lane. After what seemed like an eternity I whistled 3 seconds. Then, like now, I didn't count, I just "knew" he'd been in there "way too long." Coach A jumped to his feet and yelled "What the...," and then looked at the clock and sat back down. I looked. The clock read 5.7 seconds. Nothing wrong with my counter. I was shocked at what a small amount of time it had been. Lag time on one end or the other? Who knows? There was nothing the coach could say, though.