Old SI article on Tommy Bell and his Crew

[ljudge]

Originally Posted by aschramm

It hasn't happened to me yet, but I could see this occur: A parent runs up to you at the end of Saturday youth game (or even halftime) and demands you watch his little handycam because he believes you blew a call. Saturday games usually provide no locker room and very little crowd control, so I could definitely see this happening.

Oddly enough this came close for me with a much better outcome! I was working the Referee position in a midget game about 10 years ago and on the opening kickoff a player muffed the ball and it went into the EZ. They thought the player gained possession, then fumbled into his own EZ, to which the other team had recovered for an apparent TD. Of course I quickly ruled TB. I heard nasty yelling from the sideline of how "we got on camera and you screwed up."

Needless to say the first half was a not-so-friendly atmosphere for me. But in the 2nd half not as much noise. Of course being a young referee (and I know everyone makes mistakes) when I said good-bye to the coach I had to ask...."Coach, I know you saw that first kickoff on tape and perhaps you saw something different than I did. What did the film show? I'd like to learn from it."

Quick response...."Yeah, we looked at it at halftime and you were right."

Funny that parent and/or coach didn't approach me letting me know that I was correct. I can't imagine if it would have turned out with me being wrong.