Did he forget, or what?

[Mark Padgett]

Last night I had another "makeup" game from the snow out of last week. It was 6th grade "competitive" boys. First - I don't know how in the heck I'm letting some recent games get so close near the end. That's not like me at all.

Game tied with under a minute left when A1 scores. Team B (the visitors) come down and hold the ball for a while (don't ask me why). Finally, B1 takes a shot and misses. A2 gets the rebound and is fouled by B2 with 3 seconds left. Team A is in single bonus and A2 will shoot one and one. As the kids move into their positions on the lane, B3 tells me that if either one of the shots miss and they get the rebound, they want a timeout. I tell him thanks for giving me a heads up, but remember to shout it out or else I can't blow the whistle for one. He says "Got it. Thanks." Guess what happened? A2 misses the first shot, B3 gets the rebound and he just stands there. No words, no gestures, nothing. No one on his team, including their coach, requests the timeout. Clock runs out and horn goes off. Team A wins by two.

No one on team B says anything to me or my partner and I don't stay around to find out what happened. I know he's "only" a 6th grader, but memory loss at that age?