Had to discipline one of my refs

[Mark Padgett]

As I've mentioned before, I supervise the refs for our local rec league. We use 38 refs, 20 of which are HS students. One of them said something to another HS kid today that was, although extremely funny, inappropriate.

I have to take some of the blame, since we usually don't have HS kids reffing HS level games, but we were really short of personnel today, so I had a HS senior in his 4th year doing a JV game with an adult, so I thought it would be OK. Here's what happened:

The official calls a foul on B1 during a shot by A1. B1 (who is a friend of the ref, BTW) claims he got all hand. The ref says that he got him on the wrist. B1 says that the wrist is part of the hand. The ref then replied, "Really? Tonight ask your girlfriend for a wrist job and see if she knows what the hell you're talking about." The fact that B1 cracked up is not relevant.

If the conversation had only been between the two of them as a joke between friends, that would have been one thing. But the adults at the score table and the opposing coach all heard it, too. We were fortunate it was not heard by any young kids in the stands.

I heard about it two hours after it happened, and called the ref on the phone after I got home after my games. He realized his error and offered to apologize to all the adults who heard him, so I let him go with a warning. Besides, he only has one more week of officiating and then he's done, since he is going away to college next year.

It was pretty funny, though.

[JugglingReferee]

ROTFLMAO.

Good judgement on the warning.

[BktBallRef]

I didn't know Dave had a son!