Funniest thing you heard a fan say
 

I heard a new one the other night during my first varsity game of the season.



"I am going to become a ref when I go blind!"

I thought it was unique. Never heard that before. I've heard references to being blinded but never in that manner. Very creative!

"Good Call Ref!"

C'mon, where's the credibility? ;)

My reply would have been: "So, that would be yesterday?"

"Hey ref! 401k. Think about it."

Where do I begin?
 

I don't know where to start. But there is one incident that I remember (basically because it happened less than ten years ago, :D) well.

The incident happened before Mark, Jr., became a basketball official.

My first game of the year (the year of the incident) was a boys' JrHS (7th/8th grade) DH at School A. Team A was blown out in both games by Team B. The fans of Team A were not very happy with the officiating and they constantly let us know it. Two days later, my second game of the season was another boys' JrHS (7th/8th grade) DH at School C and the visiting school was Team A from two days earlier. After the 7th grade game which Team A won, a couple of fans of Team A told me that my partner and I did a great game and tha the officials who officiated their game two days earlier were the worst officials he had ever seen, :eek:.

MTD, Sr.

Oh, if you try hard, I'll bet you can figure it out.

See, I knew you could do it.

Sophomore Boys game in Des Moines between two city schools. I had to wear my glasses, and about halfway through the 2nd quarter, I nailed the home team FT shooter for stepping over the line.

Half way up the stands behind me, I heard "Take your glasses off."

Freshman boys
 

In a gym that will hold around 3000, we had about 75 attending this game. The opening tip went into a corner of the court where we had a held ball. In an almost silent gym a parent says, "come on ump, call it both ways."

Girls grade school. Goofball partner wore a blue tooth device and said it was since he was "on call" At halftime a fan approached him and said "hey at least you wont miss a call................

...on the Way to the Forum
 

MS 5/6 grade boys coach's last word before sitting down after receiving a merited T: "That's why you'll always be a middle school ref!" :mad:
Very next night, same coach as a fan standing at the doorway just off the endline in his home gym while my partners and I were nailing a conference title game with his school's boys' varisty team playing: "......................................" :D

Had a fan stop us after a football game adamant that we missed many horse collar tackles.

After we let her rant for 20 seconds, we asked her what a horse collar tackle was. She didn't have an answer, so she stormed away.

hey ref.....found your cell phone. it has 5 missed calls. I had to chuckle.

6th Grade AAU
 

I guess this is a fan/coach interaction, but I'm new so I can bend the rules a little, right?

6th grade AAU. This happened two days ago. Player A gets his 5th foul, or so we thought. The scorebook signals it was only his 4th, which confused everyone in the gym, including me. I went with the book, so he wasn't fouled out. Later found out the scorekeeper was player A's mom(she won't be back at that position).

Some older gentleman yells across the gym, as the kid keeps on playing, "That young man has fouled out!"

Player A's coach, yells back "Shut up @--hole" in a fairly quiet gym. I missed him saying this, or it would have been a T.

6th grade? Set a positive example, coach.

So, who heard him? Your partner? Given the level of the game, he may have had to listen to the remainder of the game on his car radio.

First game back after a long hiatus from officiating and my wife thought it would be fun to be there with the kids to support me (big mistake - at one point one of the kids turned to her and said "Mom - why's everyone yelling at dad?"). Anyway, she's sitting behind the boy's coach for Team A while the girls game is going on and someone sits down next to him and asks him how the officials are tonight. The coach's reply was "Old and older."

I got to know the coach over the next couple of seasons and told him that story after he had transitioned out of coaching to administration. He seemed really embarrassed by the statement but I assured him it was one of my favorites.

Without a doubt a flagrant T from me. (1) He yelled at a fan, (2) He used profanity in yelling at a fan. Two for the price of one.

It's better than "Dumb and dumber."

Coach yelling at fan
 

@26 Year gap- The court monitor overhead the comment, and told us after the game had ended. He is a part time employee of the YMCA(in conjunction with AAU) that is monitoring multiple court sites at one time and happened to overhear the comment.

Also, the flagrant technical foul, how would that play out differently than just a technical? I know I am not going to my rule book to get the formal answer, but I think that folks on this site explain the law, and the letter of the law, better than the book standing alone(I'll read my book soon). Does that kind of make sense? I am not disagreeing with your assessment at all, just curious the differences in the calls and how they will play out.

Appreciate all your help guys :) Everyday is a learning experience. Got torn to sheds for a horrid call tonight, JV girls. Totally deserved the crap that I got.

Immediate ejection / DQ.

And, if the "court monitor" heard it, then the league can (likely) impose some after-the-fact penalty on the coach, if they so desire.

Why *wouldn't* you look it up rather than tell us "I'm not going to the rule book"?

How can you work without even making an attempt at knowing the rules?

You mean we gotta know the rules now? The coaches don't know them, why should we have to?

At a game I was watching, when the official granted a timeout a fan yells, "Good call ref, at least you got that one that right" or something along those lines.

@RichMSN
Maybe that came off the wrong way. The rule book is important. I've been going to it over and over to clarify things an try to get better. It's a must. It's even more a must when you are this new :)

What I meant was that I was going to ask the question and review the rule at a separate time(it was late, and I was headed to bed when I wrote that last post). I've noticed that guys with a lot of experience will add tidbits of information to a rule, that may not be as clear if you were just reading the rule book directly. I think of this forum as the living "case book".

Made a PC foul call tonight, and as I'm jogging back, a fan of the offended team says "Good call blue, it takes a big man to make that call"

No, I didn't have the wrong shirt on, and I'm all of 5'6", shorter than 90% of the freshman basketball players in Illinois.

When a fan pulls the one about having found your cell phone because it has so many missed calls, tell them they're right and insist they give you the phone. If they don't, ask them why not, since they just told everyone it was your phone. In fact, you can say that if they don't give you the phone, you'll call the police and have them arrested for theft. Then, after they just act stunned, tell them it must be their phone, which is what you thought anyway since they're the one who must be missing all those calls.

No - I've never done this but I've been tempted.

A flagrant also may come with other league-imposed sanctions that include future games.

Typical of a moron who would be lucky to get a 50 on any rules test and whose most dominant call if he were on the floor would be 3 seconds.

. . . or "Over the Back!"

Reminds me of a scrimmage I worked on Tuesday. It was 3 JV girls games and my partner called about 14 3-second violations -- once when I couldn't find a single A player in the lane. I think I did call one myself, but I can't be overly sure.

I get the purpose of the rule and I'm happy to call it when warranted, but it's not like I'm standing there with my six-shooter out every time down the floor looking to call one.

The other night my P's and I were sitting on the sidelines watching the last of the JV scrimmage before our game. Out of the corner of my eye I see a tennis ball come rolling onto the court while the teams were shooting foul shots at the other end. I go on the court and retrieve it and turn to find its owner.

There's a little boy and his friend looking at me. I looked at him faux sternly, and said, "Is this yours?"

He looked at me for a few seconds, turns into the stands and points and says, "My brother threw it."

I look up, and see his brother, hiding behind his dad. His dad was just shaking his head.

I couldn't help but chuckle.

Yep, about 5 yrs old and he throws his brother right under the bus.

A good one for me this early in the season.

I once picked up something off the floor for a game following mine, and got an incredulous look from one of the officials. So, what goes on the floor stays on the floor if I am a spectator.

[QUOTE=RichMSN;799952]Reminds me of a scrimmage I worked on Tuesday. It was 3 JV girls games and my partner called about 14 3-second violations -- once when I couldn't find a single A player in the lane. I think I did call one myself, but I can't be overly sure.

I get the purpose of the rule and I'm happy to call it when warranted, but it's not like I'm standing there with my six-shooter out every time down the floor looking to call one.[/QUOTE]

Maverick.

Thanx for Waking a Bad Memory
 

Won't bore you with the thing that looked like a tootsie roll I picked up three years ago and the thing that looked like a small folded white dinner napkin a partner I was mentoring picked up last year -- both at the same local school's gym...you've heard it before.
I'm careful to let game management pick stuff up from the floor now.

Had a guy yell out to me to "take my glasses off, I was making too many calls"!

A few years ago, I worked a JV boys tournament.

A-1 is trying to save a ball from going out a bounds. He jumps, gets a hand on the ball, and unintentionally fires a perfect laser right into B-2's egg-sack.

B-2 drops to the floor and cries out in agony. Everyone else freezes, as the ball cruelly takes a few seconds to slowly roll back out of bounds. (In hindsight, I probably could have hit my whistle sooner.) I check on B-2 about ten minutes later, who says he's fine, although still reeling a bit.

Two weeks later, I see School B's varsity coach, and ask him about B-2. He laughs and says he's fine. I ask if anyone recorded the game.

"Oh yeah," the coach says. "His dad runs that part back four or five times every day!"