Same ref makes two unfavorable PC calls against home team's favorite player while bringing the ball into the front court. Then coach and home fans want an intentional when same favorite takes a hard foul going in for a lay up and doesn't get it. This brings a chant on from the student section which has been pretty boisterous to begin with:

A rope!
A tree!
Hang the referee!

Personally I thought that was pretty cold. But the ref did keep a professional demeanor throughout the whole evening. A tough night for him and a well officiated game.

My office partner and I have discussions where I have to explain a ruling or POE when he asks me how bad a call was in the previous nights Varsity game. It usually ends up with, "I never knew that". :)

A fellow official told me once that he was working a state tournament game where an "mostly" white school was playing a "mostly" African-American school. The students from the white school would chant "Who's your daddy?" everytime someone from the other team airballed a shot. Needless to say, the official didn't enjoy working that game.

Our local version of this one, which seems to come more from adult fans than from students, is "Find a tall tree and hang the referee," always followed by laughter. Even though you know "they're only kidding" it can still give you a chill.

Back in the day, our version of this was:

We've got a rope
We've got a tree
All we need is a referee

Maybe I *did* live in the bad part of town after all.

At a game I recently watched, the home student section, after a call they didn't particulary agree with, started chanting "Push It, Push It,..." while using the "Push" signal as used by the referees. Of course, in a packed gym, it could have been easily mistaken for some other words. ;) The game management quickly shut it down.

Sure there wasn't a pregnant lady needing help with her labor? Sorry, just couldn't resist the joke from Bill Cosby's old routine!

This caught me as odd too. Remove the entire band? The rope and hanging stuff might be too far, but "blow"? Can they say "heck" and "darn"?

My favorite

M-I-C-K-E-Y Oh you SOB
referee you suck
forever let us hold our fingers high. high high

course we did this in high school... havent heard it much since. Thnk heavens now I am on the other side of the whistle

Twice this past season I had to have school officials shut student's up. First time was in a 7/8 B game. Visiting team shooting 2 at the line. I'm on the side and my partner is administering the throws. Kid bounces the ball and a voice behind me yells, "Shoot the mother fu$%&#@g ball." I never even looked to see who it was. I just motioned for the school rep and said, "Tell them if I hear one more word from this section tonight I'm clearing them all out." They were very polite after that!
Second was 7/8 G volleyball. I'm on the stand and getting ready to whistle for the serve. I hear a boy yell "I forgot my bra. Can I borrow yours?" to the girls on the opposing team. I turned to the kids, all of whom I know, point straight at them and tell them to "knock it off or get out." The school rep asked me what was wrong.I told him what they said & asked him to shut them up. Needless to say, he shut them all up." We have to stop this stuff. They're starting to remind me how the adults act at games!

Since when are officials in charge of the crowd. Are we supposed to be listening to the crowd or watching for fouls and violations. Sure crowd humor is fine, but if we let it get in our heads, then we become distracted from our job.

I worked the freshman game and stuck around for the Varsity s game.

There was a player on the home team named Maggie Taylor. All the boys in the student section would chant "Maggie Taylor (clap) (clap) (clap) (clap clap clap)" almost the whole time she was in the game. Or at least that is the way it seemed. When she touched the ball the would shout "SHOOT IT MAGGIE!!". and when she was free throws: "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie" This was the home crowed too.

I can multitask pretty well. Like, I can ignore both the home coach and the visiting coach at the same time.

I'm ashamed to say, when I went to high school, it was common practice for kids in the stands to chant "the ref beats his wife" - and no one really thought twice about it. :(

The worst I've heard these days, fortunately, is "we wanna ref....we wanna ref".

On a similar note, the other day, as we're walking off at halftime, some bozo in the stands yells out "terrible half ref, terrible". I looked at him, and said "save your applause - I have a really weak finish!"

Two stories:

A few years back, during a time-out in a county varsity game, the visiting cheerleaders came onto the court and did a cheer. As the cheerleaders left the court two students from the home side jumped onto the floor. One got down on his hands and knees, while the other squatted down and "milked" him like a cow. It was hilarious, but almost caused a riot. Game management had to hold up the game while they moved the visiting students to the far end of the gym (where they probably should've been anyway).

This year, we had a boy on varsity who was largely on the team because of his enthusiasm and ability to generate camaraderie. Also for those reasons, he's a popular kid at school. Late one game, coach put him in. When he fired up an air ball, the crowd - his crowd - chanted "air ball".

You know you're right, I'm supposed to be working right now but instead I'm reading this board.

Good grief Fish, many of us are married, have kids, drive a car, talk on the cell phone, referee, umpire, full-time job, coach a team, yadda, yadda yadda. When all we have to do is ref a game, it's not that hard to hear what the fans are chanting. (so long as my cell doesn't ring while I'm reffin, I hate when that happens..LOL)