Origin of pulling your whistle out of pocket when you're just about to tip off

[Rich]

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

Last week I was about to tip off the 1st game a BJV/BV DH and realized I didn't have my whistle. It actually ended up lightening the mood of the official scorer who seemed irritated during my pre-game table meeting. She teased me about it and then she and I were best of friends the rest of the evening.

Speaking of pi$$ing off table staff...

We were watching a bit of the JV game at a school last week. My partner noticed that the timeout timer was put up on the clock and ticked down for every timeout called. He wanted that shut off and, well, I agree. Teams want to know how much time is left in a quarter, the officials want to know, etc. etc. Watching a timeout tick down is silly.

During his meeting with the timer, he told the timer to shut that function off. This really ground the timer's gears apparently, cause when I went over prior to the game he turned away when I went down the line to introduce myself and shake hands. I immediately turned to my partner and said (pretty loudly), "Now look at what you did."

He did turn off the function, however.