Your worst game ever?

[Old School]

Originally Posted by Brad

To this day I still don't know what I did to pi$$ him off that much!

At this point, do you really care?

I have had this situation occur several times and couple of those times I didn't have the luxuary of a locked locker room like at a HS game. This is a big part of officiating, that is knowing how to handle yourself in situations like this, because they are bound to occur. The better you get at handling this and defusing it, if possible, the better official you will become. Your confidence will go thru the roof.

Game management, and this is not something you can learn from reading a rulebook. You can only get this from experienced. Expereinced will teach you to be on the lookout for these type of situations, to know that this is brewing underneath, to know the temperament of your game is a must, a key, because then you can react to it appropriately when it explodes. IOW's, you already know it's going to explode before it explodes.

Examining your situation, i had a similiar situation I would like to share. I had a coach throw a chair onto the floor after i made a call. I reported, turned to tell partner we're shooting one. A player on the court says hey, look at that, I turn around, there's a chair on the floor! Since, I didn't see who threw the chair or how it got there, I could not honestly give the coach a T. I asked my partner did he see it, he said no. So I just told them to pick the chair up, we shoot the FT and keep playing. Since, I did not have definite knowledge, I choose to do nothing. Was this the right thing to do? Blow-out game, feelings a bit strained, losing team not taking it very well, I call that T, I gotta toss somebody and all the other hoop-la that goes with it. This games over, no need in me delaying it by giving out a T. You can sit there and take your medicine just like i got to complete calling the rest of this blow-out game. Now, different story if I actually saw him do it. Game management or game screw-up? You tell me.

What's more important to you? Making the tough call when it needs to be made or managing the game to a normal completion? Two school of thoughts, only one correct answer, your answer. What would you do?