Game Log 1/26/2009: This was a great, great night.

I returned to the scene of last week's somewhat difficult ballgame for another boys/girls varsity doubleheader. A very unskilled girls' team was playing the number one microscopically-small school in the whole state. (When they played each other the first time, they lost by nearly 80 points.) The boys' team had lost by 40 points as well.

I was a little bit nervous...I don't like returning to a coach who isn't happy so soon after he's unhappy. I think I'm learning most coaches have bad memories, however. I got there my usual hour early to discover that the junior high games in the same gym were running very, very long and that we'd likely start about a half hour late. Our changing room is the coach's office, and he wound up coming in and bullshiting with us (mostly my partner) for about a half hour. I'm not a huge fan of kibbitzing with coaches, but there was nothing we could do (leaving would have been highly rude, there was nowhere to go, and we can hardly throw a guy out of his own office). So we talked about his school, the weather, and guys he's reffed with (he reffed in a nearby town until recently). It calmed me down considerably.

The girls' game was about what we expected. The score was 30-2 after the first quarter, then 57-10 at half. The winning team took off the press early, but had a halfcourt trap that the losing team couldn't figure out. I wish they'd taken it off way earlier. We wound up calling way, way more fouls on the winning team than the losing team, mostly because the losing team was so timid. There were a few passes that I wasn't entirely comfortable with, but everyone in the gym knew what was going on, so it wasn't that big a deal.

I geared myself up for a blowout second game as well.

Not so much. What I got was my first good, close boys' varsity game.

The favored team was trailing at half. They threw the ball away quite often, and the underdogs kept hitting threes. The atmosphere in the gym was really, really intense...I think everyone was surprised to find a ballgame. But the favorites clamped down on D and hit their late free throws to win by 8.

The game was as smooth as anything. I had a fairly big moving screen call late against the winning team, when they were up by 3 with about 3 minutes to go. The coach for them shouted "What did he do????" I said "Hang on, coach," reported the foul, and then went to him. "It was a pretty ugly one, coach...he threw out a hip and a knee."

The coach then yelled in response.

At the player. "Come ON, Eddie! We don't need that!!!"

Yay.

Two things to work on: I'm falling into some old habits that I need to eradicate, namely shaking or nodding my head when I'm passing on a call (as if to say "No, that's not a charge" or "Clean block!" in my head). That's got to stop. Because I had a kid who I felt was flopping to try to draw a charge in front of me (if you're going to go down like you've been shot and scream a Charlie Brown-like "AAAAUUUUUUGGGGGHHHH!", players, this actually decreases your chances of drawing the foul. Make a note of it, kids.) I shook my head at the flop as my partner called it from T. I was a little annoyed that he called something that was about two yards away from me, but he later explained that he'd seen the offensive player get frustrated during the drive and throw out his arm (which he did, albeit not as much as the defender's bad acting made it look). Anyhow, if I hadn't shaken my head, the call would have been a much better sell to the coach.

The other is that I'm getting too loud. My voice is a little strained, and with my past vocal cord injuries, I need to keep an eye on that.

But on the whole, tonight was about 15 different kinds of awesome. I'm making really good progress, and might make a good boys' official down the road, if I'm not already.

THINGS I DID WELL: Call selection, hustle, coach communication
THINGS TO WORK ON: Quiet down, project more calm late in close games, no head-shaking
UP NEXT: A fairly big girls' game on Thursday night. Not hella-huge, mind you, but first place against middle-of-the-pack. Assignor said he put me on the game because the senior officials I'm working with told him I'm ready. They're all correct. I am ready. Bring it on.