On Monday I did a middle school playoff game and a mom came up in said, "You let the visiting coach intimidate you into making calls for his team." My mind goes back a few days when I was in a packed gym, rivalry game for first place in region, #2 versus #5 in the state, with a shot at the horn to win it 65-64. Yep that 7th grade coach had me shaking in my shoes.

Tuesday I have another game 1st and 2nd place teams in their region, and my first call of the game is a obvious hit on the arm of the dribbler who had beat the defender. Slight pause and the ball is clearly loose and heading toward another defender and my whistle blows. A lone voice yells, "Call it when it happens!"

Later on the home team star pins the arm of the opponent, pulls it down and goes up for the rebound. Whistle, hold #23. Same guy, "What, you gotta be kidding, you are terrible, you've been awful both ways so you are consistent, but you are terrible!"

Tonight senior night, rivalry game of two schools about 2 miles apart. We just had a travel on one end, followed by a travel on the other. We have a foul on the next trip to bring the foul count to 6-6, and guess what we hear?

Yep, you guessed it, "Call it both ways!"

Late in the game we send a player to the line and hear, "Oh sure #42 gets fouled, but they never foul." #42 had 4 fouls and fouled out about a minute later.

Right at the end a player catches the ball on the wing, steps, shuffles, is out of control and crashes into the defender stepping up. Travel.

From the other end, "Oh sure on that end it's a travel, on this end you called it a charge." The trouble was we never had a charge the entire game on either team.

2 regional games and a regular season game awaits next week, I can hardly wait.:)

Had a game similar this week. Two older men sitting about two rows behind the table were like those two old guys in the balcony on the Muppet Show. The complained about every call against "their" girls and commented on every foul on the other team.

On one occasion a girl nearly rips the shooter's arm off and I call the foul. They are harping that's not an automatic foul everytime. I'm thinking what did they want BLOOD? So I start to think of those muppet geezers and smile. They start on that "Oh, I see you smiling, you think that's funny"

They did this the entire game. Nothing ever bad or particularly derogatory. All three of us just started cracking up at half discussing this. Especially when I broke into the geezer impression in the locker room.

How about this one. JV girls game. Late in the first half, foul count is 7 against white team, 1 against red team. White team was pressing full court the entire game, right from the opening tip, red team playing off. My partner and I were calling a good strong game, only good fouls, no ticky tack stuff. White coach says to me, "The fouls are 7 to 1, you think you can even it up?" I looked at him in astonishment, then later, at a dead ball, I told him, "Coach, we don't call fouls like jump balls, alternating between the teams." Then I had this same coach two days ago against a different team, this time the fouls were 6 to 1 in his favor, and guess what, he didn't complain about that. Tells me everything I need to know about this coach.

Why do we always come here? I guess we'll never know. It's like a kind of torture, to have to watch the show!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/berkshire/stage...waldorf270.jpg

Not that I'd do this in every situation, but there was this one town back in Kansas...where I started officiating...that had these 5 old guys that came to every game, set in the first row at mid-court.

They had a rep of just eating officials alive, and during the drive there my partner and I, discussed how to deal with them.

Warm-ups and we get together at the D line and then turn around and say, "So you are the guys we heard about, and will be hearing all game, huh?" They came back with, "That all depends on how bad you guys are."

First call of the game is an obvious block against them, directly in front of them. I call it and look right at them and wink. Not a word.

Throw-in to start the 2nd quarter and I'm at the D-line and they say, "Sweating pretty good there, been drinking too much beer?" I just wipe my hand across my face and say, "Why you need some?" They lost it laughing.

We never heard a word from them and during a timeout in the 4th, they told us about their watering hole and asked us to join them for a beer.

Now that is funny!!

How did you avoid the temptation to walk up to the coach and ask him, "Coach, I see the fouls are 6 to 1 in your favor. You won't mind if I even it up a bit, will you?"

I had a game today, where our coaches wanted the ref to call more after we had an injured player, he asked "shall we look at the team foul, shall we look at how I've called?" I was very tempted to say that we had 5 fouls, they had 1...

????
Why would that be tempting to mention it? Do you honestly think the foul count should have any affect on the foul count?

My partner talked me out of it. Believe me, I was tempted.

Your partner deserves an award for valor

Your partner could not have talked me out of it. I can guaran-dang-tee-that!