Most embrassing moment

[refnrev]

Let's lighten things up a little! What's the most embarassing thing that has happened to you on the court? Having asked the question, I'll start. Several years ago at 7/8 boys game we were wearing our jackets during warm-up. I went to the bathroom with 4 minutes on the clock. As teams are coming on the the floor for tip-off, we remove jackets in front of table. Went to take mine off and I had zipped up the drawstring in my pants. Had to unzip my pants, take out the string, and zip them up again in front of the crowd. As my partner said, "Oh well, it's gotta get better from here!"

[beachbum]

14 days ago. I was in the trail and moved to get a better look at two players close to me. I moved right into the path of the running defensive player as she swiped the ball from the offence. Both players were comming straight at me with the ball on the floor rolling around my feet. They wanted the ball and I wanted to get the hell away from them. I tried to keep from stepping on the ball as I was knocked into the second row of bleachers by the players. Some girls players are pretty tough.

They had to stop the game as i imbarrasingly crawled out from inbetween the fans. The defensive girl says "are you alright sir"?

[grunewar]

B12 Rec game. Small court. Benches close to sidelines. A setting up what is a pretty good, patient, half-court, set offense and going through their dribbles and passes. B settles into a 2-1-2 zone. I'm T in two-man. Ball passing around perimeter, I'm busy counting closely guarded, stopping, starting, etc.

Ball passes from A1 at top of key to A2 on my wing.....B1 suddenly steps out and quickly pokes the pass away...which was apparently traveling at a good rate of speed and now flies about 10 feet and hits me square in the forehead.....

I shook it off. B1 however was miffed that I "got in the way" of his steal, which, IMO would have gone out of bounds if I wasn't there anyhow.

[TheOracle]

Grabbing a competitive onball matchup as the C, I aggressively jumped out of bounds to get the right angle to see between the players. As I landed, the defender swatted the ball out cleanly with his hand. Unfortunately, he swatted upwards, like they teach them, and the ball rocketed squarely into my nuts and bounced off me back to him, when he would probably have had a breakaway dunk or layin. Not only did I have to blow it dead since I was OB, I had a hard time pointing, and needed my own officials' TO to recover. Supervisor then made the great snide comment when I go the film about getting too old because my nuts should have been higher up in my pants. So it was embarassing at the game and then 4 days later, too.

[JugglingReferee]

I've never been brassed, so I do not have any embrassing moments.

[Texas Aggie]

Great topic. Always need to learn not to take ourselves too seriously.

A bunch of incidents come to mind. One time my first year, I made a backcourt violation call on a girl who had dribbled over the volleyball (but not the basketball division) line and then went "back." I double checked with my partner and then quickly put the ball back into play. Another time, I was at a camp and we were playing on that rubberized flooring crap. I was busting butt to get back on a fast break, stumbled and hit the deck. No one within half a zip code of me! Even though the rubber floor caused me to stumble, it softened the fall, except for a skinned knee. 2 goof ball officials at the camp gave me some grief, but we all had a good laugh. Then, back when we had that lack of action rule, I went through the whole process on the wrong team! Oh, well. Nobody got killed.

[Ignats75]

I was working a Girls JV game two years ago. Loose ball is rolling right at me. Girl gets it and steps on my foot as I am trying to back out of the way. I went down backwards and did a reverse summersault and popped back up in time to call a foul. The crowd cheered. The assignor was there and his only words were, "At least you got the call right. Right?"

[just another ref]

Originally Posted by Ignats75

I was working a Girls JV game two years ago. Loose ball is rolling right at me. Girl gets it and steps on my foot as I am trying to back out of the way. I went down backwards and did a reverse summersault and popped back up in time to call a foul. The crowd cheered. The assignor was there and his only words were, "At least you got the call right. Right?"

Did you make your free throws?

[mutantducky]

anyone had their pants rip or another malfunction. I only had one ref tell me that. Another I saw got nailed in the family jewels by an errant pass. Ball remained live.

[CaRef5]

heres a goodone, i was working a boys varsity game earlier this year, and as the trail i was moving to get an open angle, when i rolled my right angle and fell straight on my butt... the gym was packed with about 400 students which were all on my side of the court, so i quickly got up (to a slightly sprained ankle) finished the half and taped up my ankle at halftime

ps. i was working with my assignor and he just laughed and said he wasnt looking at me he was looking at his area so he didnt see my fall haha

[Oz Referee]

Several spring to mind:

1. Quite a few years ago, referring a senior girls game (20 year olds). My partner calls a foul, walks to the bench to report it. Signals a "push" to his side and plants both hands on the breasts of the player standing next to him thankfully she laughed it off.

2. I was asked to fill in for a ref that did a no show. Didn't have proper pants, so wore my warmup pants, the ones with press studs down the side. On a change of direction, I caught my thumb in the side of them, and ripped my own pants off! I was left standing in a pair of (black) boxer shorts

[OHBBREF]

in twenty-five plus years I have had several.

the two highest profile were:
About 15 years ago Boys Varsity Game - I am the trail, bringing the ball up the floor with A1 and B1, just over the mid-court line A1 hands off to A2 and I am now straight lined by A2 to the defenders. B2 claps his hands and the slap reverberates throughout the gym, ...Tweet ... foul on B2.
I am the only one in the Gym who doesn't know what happened and I go to the table report and rotate and everything, while the entire facility is just laughing away at my expense.
I didn't finid out until half time in the locker room what the deal was! Wow, I learned to move for position on a play quickly.

About five years ago - Girls Varsity Regional final, I am the T working the sideline in the front court - I had stepped down around the 28 foot line to get an angle on a match up with the ball just above that point and when the ball went to the middle I backed up and tripped over my own two feet landed on my bumm and slid OOB. The pass came right back to the match-up in front of me, the ball hit the floor their was a scramble for the ball and it went OOB in front of me, but I had the call no problem perfect mechanics from the kester up while sitting on the floor.

[Judtech]

This is easy.... My second year officiating, I have already gotten the "ref hike" of pulling up your pants about every dead ball. Oh yeah I had also gone from about 300 lbs to around 250.
Fast break, I feel the britches starting to slide down a tad. No worries, we can stop, I can hike and move on. Butt nNNNOOOOOO.... the little weazel has to turn the ball over. So as I stop and begin my pivot to head down the court I feel first one side then the other slide over my non exitent tuckus and now have my pants just below my buttocks. But I press on, run down the court as though I am riding a horse to make sure there is no more "slippage". But the fun keeps going, there is a "bang-bang" play, and I signal out of bounds.
After the game our supervisor comes into the locker room and asks about that specific play. He asks why I didn't call a blocking or charging foul but just went out of bounds. I said "Two reasons, first Ithought they both got to the spot at the same time and there was some REALLLY bad acting, thus no call." He asked what the second reason was, I said "Well, since my pants were about to fall off, I thought that the less moving I did the better, and there is no telling what would have happened if I had to move from the baseline and report the foul!" He thought the second reason was a better reason!

[JugglingReferee]

I've had a few...

Switching from T to L in quick transition, I tripped one foot over the other. Did the sommersault thing right into standing up again. Only the scorekeeper saw it.

Have zigged or zagged around a small kid once or twice in my career.

One game I put the wrong pants into my gear bag. They are too small for me now, but they were the only pair in the bag. The +1 was that they showed my muscular legs. The -1 was that they didn't fit nicely elsewhere.

[jdmara]

Originally Posted by OHBBREF

About five years ago - Girls Varsity Regional final, I am the T working the sideline in the front court - I had stepped down around the 28 foot line to get an angle on a match up with the ball just above that point and when the ball went to the middle I backed up and tripped over my own two feet landed on my bumm and slid OOB. The pass came right back to the match-up in front of me, the ball hit the floor their was a scramble for the ball and it went OOB in front of me, but I had the call no problem perfect mechanics from the kester up while sitting on the floor.

So you're saying you planned it that way? Now that is game awareness! I wish I had that skill level, I will work on it.

-Josh