http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...ienceandHealth

Anyone ever experience anything similar?

I've never experienced that while officiating. However, when I was in college I used to work at a gym on the weekends. During open gym, there was this one guy who had Tourette's that played rat ball. He was fine while playing, but when he was sitting on the side waiting for a game, he would swear up a blue streak.

The first time it happened, I walked out of my office to tell him to settle down, thinking a fight was about to break out. Before I got there, his friend filled me in. Everyone at the gym got used to it and just learned to ignore the swearing.

Z

Wow, great article! That kid sure has my admiration.

I've had 2 games with deaf players, one a HS game another an ncaa game. At the captain's meeting someone mentioned it as did the coach when we went over to say hi.

Like in the article their concern was he would be seen as disrespectful.

And I worked a prep school game where a player spoke no English, almost none at all. He had just entered the school, it was early in the season and he could play. Again, we were told about it beforehand.

Never seen it on the court, but have had kids in my classes with the syndrome...one girl had it pretty badly, and it really popped up during tests of any kind. Made for some interesting class periods...and lots of "Uh-huh"'s and "Got that right"'s from the other students for some reason!

I've had a coach come up and tell me about a player who was nearly deaf, because they were afraid he would seem disrespectful if something happened in the game.

Another player that I've seen multiple times this season has some kind of disorder (I can't remember) but it makes him easily upset. The coach warned us about it ahead of time, and he's good about taking the player out and letting him get calmed down if he starts getting upset. But I'm glad the coach told me.

2%, that means there is the possibility of us having a player with this condition every 2 or 3 nights. I've worked 91 HS games this year. If 2% of those players had Tourette, I could possibly have had 18+ players that had this and I never knew about even one.

Remonds me of a great friend of mine coaching his first varsity game. He keeps yelling to his point guard "make him go right, he has no left, he has no left". Midway through the first quarter he realizes the opposing point guard literally has no left hand. He said he turned about 9 shades of red, sat down, and said little the rest of the game.

I never had a situation like this or heard of a situation like this around in this area. I guess the only thing you could do if you came across this is just calm him/her down and ignore the swearing.

Just out of curiosity, how'd you happen to come across this article??

hmmm
 

"He was fine while playing, but when he was sitting on the side waiting for a game, he would swear up a blue streak. "

Now what if that had been a coach? :)