Well, Juulie and I did our first scheduled summer league games tonight, sort of, and they went just fine. I say "sort of" because she had to leave me alone for the 2nd game of our 3 game set to fill in across the street at another gym because someone didn't show up.

In our first game, one of the howler monkeys started yapping at her near the end of the game. It was something about how if she had only "been calling the fouls", his team would have "been in the game." Yeah, suuuure. They lost 50-16. Of course, it was all Juulie's fault.

At halftime of the second game, some moron started to come out of the stands to complain to me. He said, "Why aren't you blah, blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda?" Right in the middle of one of his incoherent sentences, I put up the stop sign and said, "I'm sorry. I don't talk to civilians." Then I turned and walked away. When I reached the table, I looked at him and his jaw was hitting the top of his Keds. BTW - the halftime score of this game was 8-6! This was freshman girls. I told the clock person that the league had a rule that if a team didn't score at least 10 points in a game, the coach had to run laps. She believed me.

The third game went fine and was close most of the way. One team only had five players and one of the girls got hurt with about 5 minutes to play and their team up by two. Playing with only four players for about 3 minutes, they stretched their lead to nine. She came back in then, and they won by six.

At the end, I asked Juulie how long it would take her to get home - knowing she lives on the other side of town. She told me, and then I teased her by telling her that I would probably be out of the shower before she even got to her house. She really appreciated that.

BTW - she actually remembered to bring my Diet Snapple. What a partner!

I wish I could report that she decked a howler monkey or something, but it was a pretty uneventful shift. However, tomorrow, we're in adjacent gyms for two games and we're going to see if we can switch so we can work together again. Maybe something "Dave-like" will happen. If so, I'll keep you posted.

I also brought my own whistle! And, by the way, Mark didn't shave his legs, which I was relieved to notice.

It's easy to be a good partner with Mark -- he is great to work with.

Mark, did you notice in that last game that each team had a set of identical twins? I wonder what the chances of that are.

I believe that Mark stated previously that he was also going to wear shorts to these games.If Mark had shaved his legs,it would have lessened the resistance of the wind speed that he encountered while running-and thus conversely would have increased his own running speed exponentially.The addition of one of those one-piece swimming unitards(in fashionable black and white stripes,naturally)would have also enhanced his spatial velocity.Every little bit helps when you are striving to be the best that you can be.
Please note that this mentoring advise is offered free,and without regard to race,creed or religion!

Diet f.....g Snapple? Grumble,grumble,brownpop,grumble,grumble....

I did notice that the red team had twins, because I had to tell one of them to take off her earrings. However, even though the white team had only five players, I didn't notice the set of twins. That's either an indication I was really tired by then, or else that I'm just getting old(er).

Probably both.

BTW - I have a friend who has a set of twins. When people ask him how he tells them apart he replies, "The boy is taller." ;)

Juulie, feel free to tell us why you really left!

Aaaargh! You know better than that, Mark! You can't tell the player to take her earrings out. All you can do is tell her she can't play with them in. That's like a coach calling TO! :p

Are you allowed "brownpop" DURING a game? I don't work for any assignors who are that permissive...er, crazy....

Well,I'm an assignor,and I've been told that I might be a tetch "crazy",but(seriously)...
1)No brownpop during a game.
2)No brownpop before a game on game-day.
3)No brownpop after a game IF there are any fans,coaches, players.etc. anywhere in the immediate area.
4)A severely restricted quantity of brownpop if I am the driver.
I might be crazy,but I'm not dumb!

However,paraphrasing--"Lips that touch Diet Snapple shall never touch mine!".That includes Mark,of course.:D

Gee, maybe it was my breath? Seriously, as I said, we were short of refs because two of them didn't show (gee - that never happens). Because of this, I wound up working two games with a varsity coach acting as a ref. Please note - emphasis is on the word acting .

Actually, he wasn't real bad, but there were tons of fouls called by him when all the defender got was ball. He also got a couple of "traveling while on the floor" calls wrong, including one where the player never gave up her dribble. And, oh yeah - he called about 4 "kicks" where the defender never moved her foot or leg and the pass just went off her, plus one "kick" where there was a scramble and the ball just hit a players knee as she was falling to the floor.

Yes, I discussed all the calls with him and he seemed pretty receptive. He was filling in because he is one of the sponsors of the league and it was his gym. He keeps some whistles in his office, but no striped shirts, so he wore a gray one. There were no complaints from the coaches, probably because they don't know the rules either.

The best part of the whole day (aside from working with Juulie, of course) was that by the last game of the day, both teams were so tired they asked if we could go to running clock without adding minutes. Did they really expect us to say "no"? Not only that - but at the end of the half, they asked if they could just end it there because of extreme fatigue. It was the fourth game of the day for both teams and it was only 5:00.

I thought about it for about a nanosecond and said, "Well, if you really want to..."

I'll take all the games like that I can get. :)