Jump Ball - "Need to Get Away?"

[Fritz]

7th grade girls last night, ready for the opening tip. Gave final instructions, blow my whistle, step into the circle, toss the ball up.......and see the ball get slapped right back at my face. I instinctively react by bending straight over so that it misses my face only to have the ball hit my rear end, bounce off a surprised player's hands who is behind me and back onto my back (I am doing a nice impression of a coffee table at this point), where it comes to rest as the players stop doing anything because they don't know if it is legal to grab the ball off the official's back............then my partner blows his whistle because he is laughing so hard. Oh yeah, the OIC is sitting behind the scorer's table to watch the action and us handle the game and getting a real tickle out of the predicament.

I end up re-tossing the jump between the original two while one of the coaches continued arguing with my partner that there shouldn't have been a whistle on a live ball - the official is simply part of the floor (I tried to get that low, really). Of course, no one ever had control so that was irrelevant, but then that was just the first of several "discussions" he started that night.

"Ding......want to get away?"