It never changes

[Mark Padgett]

Although I was looking forward to taking this weekend off from games, I got a call this morning to see if I could fill in and take two. I must have been nucking futs because I accepted. The first game was sixth grade boys and the second was eighth grade girls. The only up side was that I worked with a guy I never worked with before and we got along great. Oh yeah - they play running clock halves and the timeouts are only two 30s per half with no carryover.

In the first game, one team was clearly superior to the other. They scored the first 14 points of the game. The losing coach then decided to blame us for his team's poor performance. Frankly, the boys weren't really that bad, but he was making absolutely no adjustments to counteract the other team's play. Middle of first half, I told him to knock off the comments and he gave me one of those depreciating sweeps of his arm and hand. I just stared at him for a few moments, hoping he would get the picture. He didn't. With about two minutes to go in the half, he screamed at my partner about a three second call and I whacked him. After reporting it, I told him he was seat belted for the rest of the game. He thought I was making that rule up. He lasted about six minutes into the second half when my partner Teed him up again. Buh-bye. His assistant took over and he got a T with about two minutes to go in the game. Oh yeah - they lost by almost 30.

Second game was almost a replay. One team up big early. One warning, not a T, to the losing coach in the first half. Second half, my partner tosses her with a flagrant T. I didn't hear any of it while it happened, but according to my partner, the coach used profanity twice in a complaint about a block call. The profanity was directed at my partner, so he sent her packing.

Gee - I hope the rest of the rec season is as much fun as today.