It ain't over til it's over

[Mark Padgett]

I just got a call from the administrator at the venue where I have been working spring league asking me what I know about an incident between two players and my partner at the end of one of our games last weekend.

We were doing a boys Varsity spring league game. Team A made some free throws to go ahead by three with about 20 seconds left. B1 threw up a long 3-pointer at the horn that missed. He claimed he was fouled. My partner was trail and made no call. I was under the basket, watching contact and have no idea what happened out there. Besides, if there was a no-call, then there was a no-call, period.

B1 and B2 got in my partner's face and started yelling some intense profanity, directed at him. It was really graphic and really loud. Some of it instructed him to perform an act that is physically impossible unless you are a contortionist, if you get my drift.

Anyway, he went to the table and instructed the scorer to record a flagrant technical for each player. We then signed and turned in the score sheets.

The reason this makes a difference is that next weekend is the season ending tournament, with trophies and everything! OK - it's not the trophies so much, it's the fact that all these kids will be playing varsity next fall and four of the eight teams are in the same tough conference. This team will be seeded 4th, so they will have the toughest first round game of any of the top seeds. The flagrant technical means both players must miss that first game. Without them (they are that team's number one and three scorers), they will have a really tough time advancing. The tournament is single elimination, and of course, bragging rights go along with it for the regular season.

I told the guy I thought the flagrant T's were justified and that if they came at me the same way, I would have done the same thing. That seemed to settle it.

I'm just glad the rules are structured in such a way that we continue our jurisdiction after the final horn, in case crap like this happens. I hope these boys learn a lesson about sportsmanship that carries over into the regular season. I know that if their regular HS coaches were coaching them in spring league (this is not allowed), this probably wouldn't have happened.

[dblref]

Kudos to your partner. At least he had the guts to slap both of these idiots with a flagrant T. Hopefully, they will learn something from this, but probably not -- I know, I have 2 boys that played soccer and basketball and they were both good players, but hard-headed and dumb sometimes.

[ReadyToRef]

I agree with dblref. Your partner did a great job. Hopefully this will teach kids that there are serious consequences for their actions when they misbehave in sports.

[Brian Watson]

I think it was the right call. I just hope they learn the lesson while the games don't "count" and don't become bitter and drag it into the real season next winter.