OT - Funny stuff
 

Since we're in the off season, I thought a fun thread to have would be for us to share some of the funniest things we've ever seen happen in our games. I could probably list a ton of them, but I'll start with just this one.

MS boys game. Prior to the game, a player comes over to me and asks if he has to remove his nipple rings. At first I thought he was kidding, but he was serious. I said, "Uh, yeah". He turned toward his coach and told him he had to go to the locker room for a few minutes. My partner said to me, "Gee, how would you like to be his dad?" I replied, "Uh, no."

Years ago, I was doing a rec league game and former NBA player Maurice Lucas' oldest son, Maurice Jr. (Reece) was in the game. Maurice was watching from right next to the bench.

The other team was shooting a two shot foul. After the first shot, which missed, Reece jumped into the lane, leaped up and "ripped down" the rebound, yelling as he did it. He then stood there with the ball while he realized there was another shot.

Maurice yelled from the seats, "Reece, get your head in the game." Reece looked real sheepish as he handed the ball to my partner. Maurice then said, "nice board, though".

Here's another one: prior to a game, I noticed the center for one of the teams (girls varsity level) was wearing her watch. I told her to remove it. She walked over to the stands and handed it to her dad, who was sitting a few rows up.

During the first quarter, my partner and I called her for 3 seconds at least four times. After the fourth, her dad yelled, "let her put her watch back on". :)

I'll chime in with a few of my favorites
 

These are from several yrs back and both Rec Games:

Halftime, B12:

As I'm leaving the court, A Coach comes up and says, "Ref, you gotta watch B5. When he sets his screens, he jumps into the player and hooks his arm and has a tendency to hold."

I said, "I haven't noticed it coach, but I'll keep an eye out."

He says, "Seriously, he does it all the time. I know, I taught him last year when he played for me..... He's crafty about it too." :eek:


and,


B13U:

W41 comes off the bench and I call three fouls on him in about four minutes! He doesn't appear to be a bad kid, just a bit too aggressive and out of control at times (IMO).

As I’m reporting his third foul, he walks by me up to his coach and says, “Coach, I need to come out. I’m in foul trouble.”

At which point, I say, “You don’t need to come out son. You need to stop fouling.”

The coach left him in. Interestingly enough, I can’t recall calling another foul on him the rest of the game……

Different sport, but this was only three days ago, so I'm going with it.

U-14 soccer, Team A is up 7-0 with about five minutes left, when Team B finally scores.

Now only up six goals late in the game, a Team A midfielder cries, "Come on, guys! We can still win this!"

hahaha...

Two years ago, JVG game. Visiting team has the ball with about a minute left in the half. They go through a sequence of about 3 or 4 offensive rebounds, and a home team Dad yells "Three seconds!" Right after he yelled it, a home team girl got the rebound, turned, and launched a very short full court shot attempt with about 50 seconds left in the half.

The other parents were giving dad a hard time the rest of the game.

A few years ago working an early season JVB game. V1 catches the ball off balance, with his feet in the air, and proceeds to land on his can. I call the travel. V coach, who had previously taken both boys and girls teams to state finals at the varsity level, tells me (I'm on the endline near his bench) that the butt cheek is the pivot. I laughed (seriously thought he was joking), and he said, "I'm serious, the cheek becomes the pivot." I later found out he was an official for a time.

Is this the origin of the infamous "pivot cheek?" :)

I've got a personal favorite. I was working a sophomore game and called a foul on a visiting player. A fan of the visiting team yells from the stands "That was a horrible call (after a short pause) EVEN FOR YOU !!" I actually got a chuckle out of that one. :):):)

He was old enough, it might be connected. :)

While administering a throw-in during a freshman boys game, the defense was applying serious pressure and the thrower could not get his throw off. I was up to 3 in my count when the thrower turns to me with a wide eyed look of panic and yells "WAIT! Hold on!!!" I almost spit my whistle out trying to surpress the laugh.

He should have given you the ball back, therefore, the count starts over, right? :p

How come every boy and girl that plays summer ball "just" got their ears pierced and can't take their earrings out and asked if they can be taped. My answer is always the same...NO! Your ears will not close up in 45 minutes.

summer league...one of my partners calls a travel. I'm C (on "fans" side of the gym) and as I'm going to other end of the floor I hear (apparently from "mom") "c-mon ref, that wasn't a travel, he's just that darn fast!". I couldn't help but chuckle...:D

Many years ago while in the Air Force and stationed in Korea, my squadron played an officers vs enlisted game to raise money for a local orphanage we supported. The E's were killing the O's (big surprise there, huh? :rolleyes:) when one of the O's trying to take a charge on a fast break, caught a knee to a most delicate part of the anatomy. The O's "coach" for the game was a hot, young, blonde 2nd lieutenant who was dressed to kill in a short black dress and spiked heels. She came prancing out on the court to check on her injured player. As she got to him and asked if he was okay, the guy mustered enough energy to say as loudly as he could, "Coach, kiss my injury". The house came down as she turned about 12 shades of red.

Okay, full disclosure, I was the injured player.

Ya' know - when you copy an old post of someone else's, it's common courtesy to indicate whose post it was. Of course, I could have Maurice come over there and show you why he had a reputation as an "enforcer".

Here's another one. I was working a holiday boys HS rec tourney. One team had a kid who was vastly superior to all the others. With about two minutes to go in the game, he had over 30 points and his team was way ahead. His coach decided to take him out so he would get recognized by the parents and fans for his game. As he came out to a standing ovation, of course he was hot and sweaty, so he grabbed his jersey to pull it out of his shorts as he walked toward the bench. Unfortunately, he also grabbed the waistband of his shorts at the same time and he pulled them both up really fast and hard. He let out a "YOUCH" that was about three octaves higher than a soprano!

It brought out lots of laughs - not by him, of course. He was OK, but I bet he'll be more careful in the future.

That's no fun. What did Maurice do to you?

Speaking of tesitcle fouls...

I had a JV boys tournament game a few months ago. A1 leaped to save a ball from going out of bounds, which he did, but the throw was a bulls-eye laser right to B2's crotch. The poor kid goes down in a heap, and the ball slowly rolls out of bounds (and I'm talking about the basketball), so not only does Team B get some unnecessary pain, Team A gets the ball back.

I beckon Team B's coach, who's trying to hide a smile, and he escorts the young lad to the bench. I check on B2 ten minutes later, and says he'll be okay.

"It could be worse," I reply. "(The varsity coach) could be here, and you'd never hear the end of it!" The kid agreed.

A week later, I saw that varsity coach, and asked him if had heard about that play in question.

"Heard about it? His dad taped the game, and watches it ten times a day!"

JVB game a few yrs ago. H has a male cheerleader. His entire appearance and demeanor indicate he is gay (not that there's anything wrong with that) and he is doing nothing to hide it.

He is very demonstrative, enthusiastic, and really into the game. Midway thru the 4th qtr one of the H players throws a baseball pass along the near sideline that misses his intended team mate and hits the cheerleader right square in the groin!

He let out a very non-masculine, high pitched - oooh! The entire crowd gasped. He doubles over and "walks" toward the side of the court in obvious discomfort. The crowd was absolutely stunned. Some smiling, some wincing, but no one missed it! My partner and I "bit our whistles" in order to stop from laughing......

The cheerleader recovered after a few minutes......but, was a little shall we say "less enthusiastic" about the rest of the game.

This is the second year I've had a boys HS team in spring league named the "Cooties". They even have that on their jerseys. Fortunately, they don't have a mascot. :eek:

Now They Do ...
 

This will ONLY be interesting for the followers of the Big 10 in the early 90's.
Playing in a tournament a certain player drove down the lane into, literally, the open arms of Steve Scheffler (Center/ Purdue) As the player left his feet for the lay up, Mr Scheffler wrapped him up in a bear hug around the waist. SO there is this unknown player, about 18" off the ground, being held there as he hung in place by Mr Scheffler. Play stops, and both players look at the official and say "Well?" Mr Scheffler said "He isnt big enough to knock me down" The unknown player, was very scared the Mr Scheffler would squeeze tightly. The official just had a deer in headlights look. No call, count the basket. On the next possession Mr Scheffler said, "Next time, I'll just foul you!" I can neither confirm nor deny that the player never drove the lane after that.:eek:

It's not that funny, but I had a partner come to a game wearing black shoes with white shoelaces. I guess it could have been worse.

YouTube - Dodie Stevens - Tan Shoes and Pink Shoelaces (Live)

JV B, small schools, 4th quarter of a blowout, so the benches have been emptied and we have some of the non-players in the game.

Team B scores with about 10 seconds left and Team A takes a time out so that the kids who are usually at the end of the bench have a chance for a buzzer beater.

Team A sets up their out of bounds play and they run it to perfection to get the ball to this kid on the wing (keep in mind they ran their OOB play in their own backcourt). The kid takes two awkward dribbles and goes to shoot at Team B's basket. Out of nowhere, this kid who is not a basketball player, but is athletic, swats the ball into the 3rd row of the bleachers.

As trail, I blow the whistle, while laughing, and point in a very obvious manner towards team A's basket. At this point, everyone get the hint that they were all backwards. I can honestly say, I don't think any of the ten players knew they were going the wrong way.

Yup. We had a great childhood before video games.

I thought that story seemed oddly familiar...

From 2007.... http://forum.officiating.com/basketb...tml#post422801

A few words changed but essentially the very same tale. :rolleyes:

How embarrassing. :o

Here's one from about 10 years ago. Called a kid for carrying the ball on his first three possessions. They weren't even close calls, because his violations were really blatant. Coach requests and is granted a timeout after the third call. He comes over to me and says, "That's just the way he dribbles. If you're going to call that, he'll get called for it every time he has the ball!"

My reply was "Then I guess that's what's going to happen coach. Maybe you should do something about it." The coach just looked at me and shrugged.

The kid got the ball about 10 more times during the game, dribbled about six of those times and got called for a carry all six. Every time my partner or I made the call, the coach just shook his head.

I always wondered what happened in all the games that kid played in before this one.

Surprised the opposing coach didn't instruct his team to give it to that kid so they could set up out of bounds plays under their basket.

Not A Kneeslapper, But Still Funny ...
 

Varsity game this past season at a small suburban/rural school that I've worked at dozens of times in the past twenty-nine years. The table in this gym is attached to the bleachers. Also, there is a folding door that divides the gym, which means that the bleachers are also divided, and for the past twenty-eight years the table has been on the bleachers to the left of the dividing folding door. Since I'm the umpire, I really don't notice the table during warmups. The game begins and I have the first whistle, a foul, and I hustle over to the reporting area and start signaling to the table, until I notice that there is no table where I'm looking and signaling. I look to my right and the veteran crew at the table are all laughing at me. Sure enough they decided, after almost thirty years, to move the table to the bleachers to the right of the dividing folding door. From that point on, every time I report a foul to the table, the crew waves their hands like they're trying to get my attention. During a time out I spoke to the crew. They told me that the same thing had been happening all season long, and that I hadn't been the first official to report to a nonexistent table and crew.

Another Table Problem ...
 

My local board works a high school scholarship tournament, gratis, the Doc Hurley Classic, in the XL Center (former Hartford Civic Center). "Big Time" court (UCONN). The first year we worked there, one of our veteran officials got confused and reported a foul to the press table, that was on the other side of the court from the scorer's table. He never lived that down.

That happens to me all the time in our local kids rec league. In fact, a couple of times I've reported to the television crew.

Yeah, right. ;)

Probably my funniest game yet was a boys HS rec game. One of the coaches came out dressed as Bozo the clown. At first, I didn't notice it because he just looked like a lot of other coaches. About 10 seconds into the game, he jumped straight up off the bench and yelled about a call. Unfortunately for him, when he jumped up, his head got cut off by a ceiling fan. It rolled out onto the court and was picked up by one of the players. He bounced it and the nose hit the floor, giving off a squeak. He asked me if they could use this as the ball for the rest of the game. I told him we couldn't because it was only a 28.5. He said what if they all played like girls? I thought about it for a moment and said OK. The rest of the game went fine but with a lot of squeaks. At one time, one of the players tried to dunk but his fingers were caught in the eye sockets and he couldn't let go of the head. He hung on the rim and I had to call a T. Final score was 4-2.

Can you tell I ran out of meds?

Early 1990's (1992 to be exact): Michigan AAU Girls' 14U Championship game, with about 200 hundred people in attendance (The winner qualifies for the National Championship tournament; actually the Michigan AAU's qualifiying tournament is so large that it qualifies the top three teams, but I digress.) and Team B's HC is starting to get more and more annoying as the game progresses and we have only played about five minutes. I am the T and Team B's PG (she is also Team B's Captain) is dribbling the ball up the court and while she is still in her team's backcourt he starts up again and I tell her that she needs to get her HC under control. Without stopping her dribble she stops and yells to her coach: "Dad! (:eek:) Shut up, you are embarrasing me." The stands erupts into laughter, B-HC's face turns bright RED, and he doesn't say a word the rest of the game.

And on this Father's Day I somehow still feel sorry for him, :D.

MTD, Sr.


P.S. HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!! to all of us father's out there.

Classic :)

Working a Soph. boys game a few years ago. Small crowd, the kind where you can hear individual voices. Clearly. Dad from the visiting team has a bee in his bonnet about something, and is making a real spectacle of himself. After one call, and a particularly obvious bit of daddy commentary, visiting team 2 guard turns to me and says sheepishly, "I'm sorry. My dad gets a little out of control sometimes." I just smiled at him and said, "No worries. I had a dad too". Kid was my best friend for the rest of the game. :)

Pants On Fire ...
 

Sorry. I don't believe your story. You would never let a game get this close to overtime. Never. Ever.

I have a kind of "stock" saying when a kid takes a shot after the whistle for a violation. It's "don't shoot after the whistle. It confuses the scorer and he's not too sharp to begin with." About three years ago I had a kid respond, "Yeah, I know. He's my dad."

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner:D