OT - automatic T?

[Mark Padgett]

I was at Costco around noon today and while I was looking at something on a shelf, a guy came around the corner and crashed his cart into mine. He quickly said he was sorry. Then, we recognized each other. He's a long time rec coach in this area and I've worked plenty of his games. He smiled and asked me if I was going to give him a T. I told him that crashing into another cart was a flagrant technical and he was ejected from the store. He laughed and asked me if he could stay and finish his shopping if he "bribed me" with a Costco hot dog and a pop. Since I was planning on getting that for lunch there anyway, I said sure.

We went over to the food stand, got our dogs and sat down. We talked basketball for about half an hour. Fortunately, neither one of us had any perishables in our carts. He asked me a couple of rules questions, not that he is not knowledgeable about rules, but these were situations that came up in games in which he thought the officials got their interpretations wrong. He was right in three cases out of four.

Anyway, it made for a fun lunch. I really don't count $1.50 as much of a bribe, anyway.