Craziest/Embarrassing Moments

[JRutledge]

Story one:

I used to wear earrings and have both of my ears pierced. I believe it was the year I started officiating and I was doing a 6th grade girls game and we had the pregame meeting with the players. I go on telling them to remove their earrings and other jewelry as I was the Referee. Well all of this I was wearing too loop earrings in my ear and I did not know it. My partner who was a very good friend of mine wanted to see when I would notice I had them in my ear. It was the running joke for the next few hours and was very embarrassing as he had no idea I would give the Jewelry speech.

Story two:

One more quick story. I called a timeout for the team on defense with less than a minute to go in a game this past year. It was so loud in the gym I "thought" I heard a coach ask for timeout, but obviously heard it from the wrong bench. I happened to be the "timeout official" that day as every timeout I happened to be in front of the bench. I think I called every timeout in this close game that night. Well I just flinched and called a timeout. The place went dead silent and all I could think of is the Southwest Airlines commercial.

Oh, it gets worse. The team with the ball was either up by one or the game was tied. So we put the ball back in play and low and behold the team who had the ball and was the visiting team throws the ball directly to the opponents for an easy lay up to take the lead. That just had to happen to me did it not? The visiting team and the team who I stopped the clock now lost the game (even with some other controversy which I was not involved in), but clearly lost because of this play. I wanted to hide in a hole and go away. I have never been so embarrassed by a play in my somewhat long career. And the entire situation was in the paper with my name listed. I do not think that will happen again to me. I am not giving any more timeouts. LOL!!!

Peace

[Toren]

This past year, being my first year, I was at a freshman boys game. Team A shoots the ball and player A5 pushes B5 completely out. I have a whistle. The score table tells me that we are in the bonus. I quickly explain to the coach and the score table that "there isn't control on a shot, so we can't shoot bonus"

Well needless to say at halftime of the game I looked up the rule. I apologized to the coach immediately. The coach was pretty forgiving, I think he liked that I looked up the rule right away.

[grunewar]

My first game ever - B12U.

Half-way through the first-half and I grant the coach his second time out.

My very senior partner (in age and experience) came up to me and asked, "Why do you keep T'ing up the coach."

No formal training (Hey, I didn't need any, I played and was a coach, right?) and I kept granting his time out by forming the letter "T."

[bainsey]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

The visiting team and the team who I stopped the clock now lost the game (even with some other controversy which I was not involved in), but clearly lost because of this play. I wanted to hide in a hole and go away.

That's an understandable feeling, Rut, but don't give in to the myopic fans' perception that this single play lost the game. In 100% of games, the final score determines the winner, and while this play was huge and will likely always be magnified, the reailty is there were at least 31 other minutes of the game that determined its outcome.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by bainsey

That's an understandable feeling, Rut, but don't give in to the myopic fans' perception that this single play lost the game. In 100% of games, the final score determines the winner, and while this play was huge and will likely always be magnified, the reailty is there were at least 31 other minutes of the game that determined its outcome.

I was not worried about fans or anyone but myself and what I thought. Of course that had little to do with the game, that was just a bad decision that was magnified by my mistake. The game was back and forth and a couple of silly plays made the game closer than it should have been by the visiting team. The reality the team lost, but it would have been nice to not have that take place.

Peace