Thursday, June 18, 2009

What Comes Around...

I had alluded to this story and finally have time to get back to it. And I'm glad I postponed the story, because it really got good. Better than I was hoping for.

I was refereeing a FRESHMAN boys basketball game on Friday, February 20 at Marlette. I was scheduled to do a freshman/JV doubleheader. It's a pretty good gig. Less than 1 hour of total drive time, 2.5 hours of work, $110. The opposing team was Harbor Beach. Before the game, my partner had mentioned the HB coach was a pretty good basketball official himself and did a lot of Varsity games in the Saginaw area. (I believe that, however I don't know how long ago that was. It's pretty difficult to coach a freshman game and then have time to do anything else after the game, let alone drive to Saginaw in time to ref.)

Let's cut to the chase. HB has the ball at halfcourt after the timeout with :09 seconds remaining. Marlette is winning by 2. HB takes a shot and misses. A HB player gets the rebound at the low block, right in front of me. IN MY JUDGEMENT, he was fouled, but a non-shooting foul. I blew my whistle about a half second before the buzzer went off to end the game. I called "on the floor," meaning he was fouled, but not when shooting. Again, the key here is, in my judgement, when he was fouled, he was NOT attempting a shot. Normally, at the freshman level, this wouldn't be all that bad because the other team probably had committed too many fouls in the half, making this a one-in-one situation for HB. But, HB was not in the bonus situation, so the game just basically ends. The HB coach new Marlette did not have enough team fouls to put HB on the free throw line unless it was a shooting foul. So, he was extremely...

In my 13 years of officiating any sport at any level, to my best recollection, no one has ever swore at me (that I've been able to hear).

Coach: (On the basketball court, following me to the scores table to report the foul)
That is horse bleep. No way! You can't end the game like that! Are you kidding me? That is horse bleep. No way are you going to end the game on that!


Not only was he "giving me the business," but so was the Varsity basketball coach:

Varsity Coach: (Sarcastically clapping) "Great call ref. Excellent call."

Oh, and my mom was at the game that night too. She was sitting behind the HB bench, about halfway up the bleachers. However, she never mentioned anything to me about the call. I'm not so sure she even knew this happened.

Like I mentioned before, this was a doubleheader. So, I had to go in the coaches office in the locker room after the game, try to completely forget about what just took place, and the come back out for a much faster, competitive tempo JV game...with more people in the stands.

The ironic thing is, really no one knew I had to work the JV game as well, but the one guy I don't remember ripping on me after the game was the HB JV coach. He must have known there was a good chance I'd be reffing the next game, so why get on my bad side (not that I didn't want to stick it to HB anyway). Side note, HB won the JV game.

That was one of the more mentally challenging nights of officiating I've ever had to deal with. Some of you were with me at the 12-year old State Championship baseball game that I umpired behind homeplate with 2000 people in attendance. That was easy compared to coming out of the locker room for the JV game that night.

Fast forward to boys basketball districts at Cass City, March 9. HB was one of the 5 basketball teams in the district. I had "girls/opponent locker room supervision" duty for the districts. When HB showed up, I immediately recognized all the HB coaches, including Dan Brown, the freshman coach. I didn't know if he would recognize me in regular clothes and glasses 3 weeks later, but I sure hoped he would so I put myself in positions where it would be easy for him to see me next to the wall.

I never knew what I would say had we met again. But I tried to burn a hole through his eyes anytime we made eye contact. I so badly wanted him to know it was me.

Later that night, as the HB team huddled near the locker room waiting to take the floor, Dan Brown approached me. Dan is bald, mid-40's, shorter than me, but looks like he can hold his own. He shook my hand and deeply appologized for what he had said. (He also couldn't help himself from commenting/correcting my positioning on the floor when I refereed.)

I politely "accepted" the apology...

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