Foul fest saved by partner's zinger

[Mark Padgett]

Had one of my junkiest (a word I learned from my grandson, Tyler) games ever last night. 8th grade Elite (a term used around here for the highest competitive level of rec) game. Home team was in double bonus two minutes into the second quarter and again before the end of the third. Visitors were in double bonus in first and third quarters. Eight players fouled out. We weren't calling it any differently than usual, but the players must have just taken their "rough play" pills. No amount of admonition from us or the coaches made any difference. Oh yeah - visitors won by 18, mostly because they knew how to make their free throws.

The game would have been a total disaster except for a great comment by my partner. In the fourth quarter, A1 passed to A2. The ball deflected off A2's hand to the floor. He picked it up and after a moment or two, he started to dribble. Coach B (home coach) yells "DOUBLE DRIBBLE". The weird thing was, he kept saying (not yelling) it loudly every three or four seconds as play continued. As soon as there was a dead ball, my partner turned to him and said, "Coach, if you don't stop chanting 'double dribble', I'm going to start chanting 'technical foul'".

He got the message and we hardly heard a peep out of him the rest of the game.