Went to a couple of sectional playoff games last night as I was hoping to see some good basketball, but mostly because I knew all 6 officials.

The first game went smooth with no issues. During the second game, a couple of calls went against team A and the student section started to chant: "I am blind, I am deaf, I wanna be a referee."

Chris,

They are just being politically incorrect! I'm deaf and I'm a referee! Maybe they should have breathalyzer tests to see if they'd been drinking before the game.

It would have rhymed better if they would have used the word "ref" instead of "referee"

the way they were saying it was almost a song and it sounded ok. At the time it was pretty funny, even the crew had to chuckle. The calls were right, team A was setting illegal screens. Fans don't spend alot of time watching off ball so they never say what happened but the crew nailed the calls.

I think the actual chant goes
"When I'm too old and I can't see
I'll become a referee!"

That's actually the first time I've heard that one!

The best chant I've heard all season was when the visiting team was stalling out front the last two minutes of the first half:

"High school shot clock.........high school shot clock"

--Rich

LOL! I love it!

These are all pretty funny! I'd never heard them before. The best chant I heard was late this year. A visiting player was a bit on the short side and kind of hairy. The student section started singing the Ooopa Loompa song from Willy Wonka every time he had the ball.

While I got a good laugh out of the high school shot clock chant, I really thought this thread was going to be about the students chanting something that is profane or at least not super language.

For example, the crowd chanting bullsh1t.

I feel that the NFHS needs to come out with a POE that this stuff will not be tolerated in a HS game and will result in a T without warning.

At our state championship game the band of one team was chanting, "These refs blow. These refs blow." The chant was led by the band director, too!
I would have T'd and removed the entire band.

Regional final -- every time a certain player got the ball the chant was "ballhog, ballhog.......ballhog, ballhog......"

--Rich

At a regional championship game , the other night, after a bout four or five charge calls, (they were all correct by the way) :<), every time we blew our whistles the student section started going Da Da Da Da Da Da CHARGE . Evidently they wanted all calls to be charge. I found quite humorous

For making a factual statement? The Refs do blow...a whistle :D

Uh, oh...I feel a perception vs. intent rant coming on! :D

You're going to punish the team with a T and try to remove the band because their band director and the band members are trying to be funny? Geez. If it bothers you that much, just have the gym manager handle it (and there are probably several "gym managers" at a state championship game). Lighten up.

Z

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)

They need to watch the Duke fans. "Ho ho, hee hee, we scored higher on the SAT."

or

"Ho ho, hey hey, you're gonna work for us some day."

Gotta love the cleverness.

Nuts and Bolts, Nuts and Bolts.....We.......Got......Screwed!!