Conflict of Interest...

[SmokeEater]

I learned a very valuable lesson 2 years ago. My daughter who was then 13 years old was playing in a club tourney (AAU for comparison) and I was scheduled to officiate on the court she ended up playing one of the playoff games. I did not know what teams would be playing only that it was a playoff game and depending on how the round robin ended teams would be determined. Anyway, when I seen it was my daughter I cleared the issue with the coaches and away we went. It was a very entertaining game which came down to a 2 point attempt to tie the game and I call a foul, on my daughter. This put the opponents on the line to tie the game (it is important to note that they could have won had they made the initial shot). Free throws are attempted and the girl makes 1 of 2 and the game ends.

As I am signing the score sheet, my daughter walks over and says do you have more games or should I wait in the car, loud enough for some parents to hear. All of a sudden some guy is screaming from the stands that I was biased and called an unfair game which screwed his kid of a win. Yelling he is going to appeal the game and notify the tournament director. I ignored him until he started to threaten me personally. I am 6'04" and 225 lbs, I stood up and told him he had every right to talk to the administration but if he continued to threaten me then we would have to see how far he would go to back that up. (Second mistake)

I get a call from assigner later asking what happened so I told him. I kept a copy of the game sheet so I could look at the foul count and summary report. Final foul count in second half was 13 - 11 in favor of the loosing team. Attempted FT's in the game was 31, made FT was 6 pts from FT's. Where was this game really lost! Anyway after all of the BS that went on I had to apologize to this team and parents, I was suspended for 1 week and rest of the season tournaments ( 1 more ). It really wasn't a big loss.

All would have been ok if everyone had of just dropped it and moved on. The next year I am in a gym doing a game and what do I hear from the crowd, "This is the guy who screwed us last year, check and see if his girl is playing." Next stoppage in play I went to gym supervisor and asked to have the parent removed who said the remark. They would not do it so I left the gym myself. I got no grief from the assignor.

Moral of the story, never even if you know there is a chance, officiate one of your childrens games. I don't care what sport perception is some peoples reality.