Why we avoid conflicts of interest

[Rich]

Tonight I had the championship of a holiday tournament, 3-person girls.

The dates on this tourney changed and instead of having a first round game (4 teams, 2 nights) we ended up with the championship.

My regular 3-person crew has a guy who teaches at one of the high schools. After the games were played last night, he noticed that he would end up working the school where he teaches, so he arranged a switch into the consolation game and I get one of those officials.

Fast forward to the second half. That school is getting waxed. I call a shooting foul on one of their players at the other end of the floor from their bench. I report and I hear the coach going on and on about this one call in a 20-point game.

I decide I need to deal with this, so I step into the backcourt where I'm greeted with, "that's a terrible call - I need your address so I can send you a tape so you'll see how horrible that was."

I'm kinder and gentler, so I walked away from him. He kept going, using words like terrible and brutal. I'm not a fan of the stop sign, but I used one here, figuring maybe he'll see that on film. He continued, I whacked.

I should've whacked him after the address remark. I'm getting soft.

Glad the school's teacher wasn't on the game, although I missed working with him.