Had my first big spill ever tonight. I was R, two man girls game and after the toss, I kind of backed away towards the far sideline. B5 had slaped the jump to A1 who then heads like a bat outta hell towards B's basket. This took both my partner and me by surprise. So, she is mid layup , feet off the floor when she finally heard her coach yell....Noooooooo! So she instead pushes the ball back to the court. Double dribble, travel whatever....So I was gravitating that direction moving down that sideline and suddenly my right leg wasnt where it was supposed to be right when I put air in the whistle for the travel. DOWN GOES FRASIER. Apparently this small kid had gotten up and was walking on the sideline or heck maybe a step on the floor. I tripped right over him.

NOT a good way to start a game, let me tell you. Not only did I trip and fall but blew the whistle to let everyone in the gym know that I was about to pull of a 9.5 difficulty face plant!

So thats my confession. The lesson learned is....just stand there and MCI it next time. Why I backed out, I have NO idea.

Ouch - sorry to hear it. Hopefully you could finish the game (for your partners sake :p)

The initial embarrassment was more painful than the skinned knee. Fortunately my pants were no worse for the wear.

I did a middle school game several years ago that had a tartan floor...basically a few layers of latex paint over concrete...a kid had stepped on the floor directly from a towel and left a wet footprint on this nasty surface.

Ball changed direction and my foot came down part in, part out of this wet spot and my foot kind of grabbed and then was not touching the floor anymore. A very bad thing since that was the only foot on the floor at the time.

I went splat right in front of the home coach, who was about 6'4" 260, who just bent over and picked me up.

My hip was sore for a couple of weeks.

I had a partner that had a run in with a wrestling mat rolled up in a corner once. He was lead in transition, the ball pulled back out and he was not there anymore. I saw his feet flopping around trying to get himself unstuck, I did not stop play, I just did one whistle for about ten seconds. I figured the less attention the better.:D

crowd manners
 

Most of us have had this happen in varying degrees at one time or another. When the crowd laughs, (yes, I said when, not if) it makes you want to jump up and pull a Meadowlark Lemon: "Hey! What are you people laughing at?
Somebody could have been killed out here! ....and it could
have been me!" One of the nastiest ref spills I ever saw involved a guy stepping back and stepping on the ball. It was like he was tossed up in the air and then his butt was the first thing to hit the court. To his credit, he didn't even wince noticeably, and managed to keep smiling.
I think everybody in the crowd laughed except me.

Ouch. I can relate. One time I was trail (varsity girls 2-person game) and there was a turnover followed by another turnover. The second time I changed direction, I got absolutely leveled by a rather beefy girl. I went down like an unsuspecting quarterback getting leveled by Ray Lewis. The ball when out of bounds on my line so I blew my whistle while laying on my back. Then I laughed and made a player-control foul signal. The fans got a good laugh out of it and I was beet red.

Z

Been there, done dat.

Trail just after a TO. Ball stolen on the throw-in. JR, showing remarkable agility, pivots and heads t'other way while watching the dribbler. Fails to notice cute l'il cheerleader come a coupla feet out on the floor and bending over to pick up some loose pompom strands(cheerleaders were on the sideline in front of stands because there was no room at the ends ). JR now goes over the cheerleader and does 3 1/2 flips in the pike position with a degree of difficulty of 4.7. Luckily JR landed on his head, so he wasn't injured.

The cheerleader got a standing O.

Hmmm...explains a lot.

Do you mean "Down goes Kelsey Grammer!" or Down goes FraZier!" :D

I have 4 stories about these.

My really athletic moment:

Loose ball, 2 kids dive and slide right at me. I jump they go by and I stick the landing. Phone book vertical and zero hang time is greatly aided by self preservation and bringing up your knees.:D

Cheerleaders:

1. Had a partner get kicked going the other way after a made goal.

2. Bust out with very little room on the end line and I pivot and back out and pin a cheerleader against the wall. I hear the air go out of her and I held her up for a couple of seconds and when I stepped up she slid down the wall.

3. One of her sisterhood got revenge a few years later when I backed out as lead after administering a FT. The cheerleaders were lined up doing the hurdler stretch and the girls on the end were not as far back as the ones in the middle. I stepped on a leg pulled up my foot, got tangled and fell.

I see Mr. Spelling Guy has a capable intern. ;)

I bet the East German judge gave you a 2.0!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by BktBallRef
[B]
Him too!!

There's this tourney here every year that some of us go to in a little group. It's working single all day, each game is 15 minutes running time, and they all start and stop at the same time. It's about an hour from here so our group always drives together.

This year, the person who was planning to drive was very late. We jumped into the car and dashed. It's a good thing there aren't too many cops on the freeway at 8 am Saturdays. When we got there, we just ran straight to our floors. THen I saw that I had about two minutes left and I ran to the bathroom.

When I got back to my gym, they had already started! Just as I came through the door, someone had blown a whistle for a foul. I started to run across the floor toward the players, and one player saw me and passed me the ball. It was a bad pass, and the ball hit my leg, but it didn't bounce off, it just sort of rolled down, and then slowly away. I bent down (away from the crowd) to pick it up, but I misjudged and began to fall forward. I hit on one shoulder and rolled over onto my back. I lay there thinking, "All these people have seen so far is my (rather commodious) shorts. Maybe I'll just leave right now, so they never see my face to remember me." And then, "Couldn't I fake an injury so I'd get some pity instead of just laughs?" And then, "I wonder if I could work the whole day with a bag over my head?"

LOLOLOLOLOL, thanks, now I have to clean the Diet Cherry Vanilla Diet Dr. Pepper I just spit all over my monitor. LOLOLOLOLOL