Craziest/Embarrassing Moments
 

What is everyones craziest/embarrassing moment related to officiating?

Is this thread specifically for Padgett? he could write a book I'm sure! ;)

Man, Was My Face Red ...
 

Continued a five second inbounding count into a ten second count for a violation. It did involve a technical foul, and I did apologize to the coach after the game once I pieced together what I had done.

Young official. First varsity scrimmage. Trying to impress. As lead, I thought it was a two shot foul when it was actually a one and one. After the first miss, I jumped in to get the rebound, and ended up in a pile of big guys all wanting the rebound.

Twice in my career I've called rebounding fouls where I had A1 fouling A2. Thank God for the inadvertent whistle bail out.

Girls game. As trail, counted a three point basket at the buzzer that touched a support wire above the backboard after a high bounce off the rim. I took my eyes off the ball for a split second because I thought that the girls couldn't jump high enough to cause basket interference. Everyone in the gym saw it except me and my partner.

On turnovers, followed by a fast break, changing from old trail, to new lead, while running full speed, while looking over my shoulder. Once, in an nearly empty gym, I ran into the only set of bleachers that was open opposite table side. In another game, in a full gym, I ran into a cheerleader who was a little too far into the playing court.

I have no reason to think this was your fault.

On several occasions, I've had a shooting foul on B1, only to report the foul on A1, and totally forget who the foul really should be on. Luckily for me, hasn't happened to me on a big stage...mainly because I'm not at that point yet

The remedy is simple...slow down!

First year officiating. Had lost a ton of weight but not updated the uniform. Yes you know what is coming. Supervisor was at the game. As I got to mid court I was ready to do the pant hike. But nooooo PG turns it over and we head back down. Player drives end line bang/bang players bump ball goes oob, I have nothing but OB call. Had to run down court like I was riding a horse to keep britches up. After game supervisor asks why I didn't have a foul either way. I said "2 reasons. 1st I thought they got there at the same time so I didn't think there was a foul" He corrected that and said "What's your second reason?" I said " My pants were falling down, and I was afraid if I whistled a foul I'd lose em.! He told em " I like your 2nd reason better!"

Happened during a weekend kids league. I had forgotten my skin colored elastic I used to use on my wrist for alternating possession arrows. Searching through my bag pre-game all I could muster up was a quarter. Seemed fine until following a call I went to move the quarter from one pocket to the other. The quarter dropped and wouldn't you know it landed perfectly on it's side and began rolling down the court. My partner had already put the ball in play and play had resumed. I quickly blew my whistle and drew all eyes on me as I began to track down the quarter rolling across the floor. Safe to say I never used any item with rolling ability again.

Wearing shorts to my 1st HS game :o

I believe that goes for about 90% of our gaffes.

Anyway, second year, I think. Coming out of a time-out of a MS game, I administer a backcourt endline throw-in. A1 makes the throw-in to A2, who makes the lay-up in the near basket.

I blow my whistle, immediately thinking, Dammit Bainsey, you gave the ball to the wrong team! I go to my veteran partner, asking how to get out of this mess. This team just scored, because of me. Now what?

"What do you mean?" he offers. "Just ask the coach if he wants the points."

It took me a minute to realize the gaffe wasn't mine, but A2's, and I honestly hadn't seen a made shot in the wrong basket since I played pee-wee! Everyone in the building knew what had happened, except me. I felt brutally stupid, but no-one knew about it. I suppose that's a blessing.

Actually, I've never been embarrassed. In order to be embarrassed, you have to care what other people think of you. :p

As to craziest moments, I don't think there's enough space on the server. :rolleyes:

OK - I'll try to come up with just a few and post them later.

Two Stories
 

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. :eek:

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

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.

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." :o

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

OK - here's one
 

I had a game about 10 years ago in which the two players for the opening tip were way taller than me. I mean really, really tall. I got set to toss the ball and we all were looking up. My mechanic for the toss is to pick a point in the air about three feet above the tallest jumper and concentrate on tossing the ball straight up to that point. I went to throw the ball and my toss hit one of the jumpers on his chin and came back and hit me in the nose. The worst part was that on my subsequent toss, my throw hit the other jumper in just about the same place as the first one.

I called my partner in to make the toss.