The wisdom or foolhardiness of keeping an officiating blog

This month's Referee Magazine has a piece on officiating conversations on the web. It includes one key reminder--for us to remember that every call we make now, from the smallest freshman game all the way up--has a chance of being recorded on a cell phone and making it onto YouTube. I suspect that the accompanying commentary will not likely be kind. Not much that can be done about that.

Of more interest to me is a section on blogs by officials about their games.

Here's part of what they said:

Amateur umpires have used blogs as well, sometimes to relate their experiences on the field or court. One example was cited by Mark Uyl, one of the session's panelists and the assistant director of the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA).

"We have an official who started an official blog," he said. "The way it was first described to us was the official could work a game on Friday night, go to his computer Saturday morning and kind of give a detailed account of the game. That really posed a dilemma to us because we have a policy that officials won't comment to the media on specific game circumstances, and essentially we had an official who was eliminating the middleman."

As a result of these incidents, the MHSAA created a policy. Officials could talk online about officiating in general, but not specific games, players, or plays.

In other words, this blog would violate MHSAA policy. If I'm in Michigan, I'm in danger of some form of sanction.

The article continues. NCAA National Coordinator of Softball Officials Kathy Strahm says that officials who have blogs should "exercise caution," and Uyl eventually says that "our official who writes the blog, I respect the fact that whatever he writes about, he puts his name to."

I think I exercise that "extreme caution"...but through anonymity. I made the choice immediately upon starting this blog that I would not use my name, the names of any schools, of any coaches, partners, cities, or states. The reasons for this were simple: I want to provide a honest self-critique and to write accurate depictions of game situations. I also decided that I would never, ever, ever badmouth a partner here. (Or rather, that I'd save up all the worst partner moments and combine them into one post.) I don't think I've ever said anything I'd be embarrassed by here. A quick search reveals I've called a coach a jerk once. I've dropped the word "idiot" on three fans at my games (one of whom was running the scoreboard), as well as a few fans of the pros and sportscasters (most notably Joe Theismann). But nothing heavier than that. On the whole, in spite of my anonymity, I'm both civil and careful.

The primary reason I write my game logs on this blog is for self-critique. I am my primary reader. I want to be able to keep track of what I'm doing well and what I need to work on. With three seasons of game logs here, I can actually look back at past games (and occasionally do) in order to assess my strengths and improve my weaknesses.

The secondary reason I keep this blog is because I have smart refs who check it out occasionally and give me input. Whether it's my buddy Young Guy or a college ref like MassRef (Mass, next time I'm in your neck of the woods, I SO owe you a beverage), it's simply awesome to get another's view on a tough call or game or congratulations on a good call or game. They make me better. They also force me to provide accurate, thoughtful, honest appraisals of every game.

To use some specific examples, when I have a terrible game like this one, or am questioning a call I made like this one, anonymity provides me the opportunity to write down events as honestly as possible to get feedback...both from later versions of myself and from smart refs who read this. I'm the kind of guy who does most of my thinking aloud, and once I'm done chatting with partners and ref friends, I continue talking here on the blog. Posting with my name would make me loath to present the warts-and-all analysis of my work that I want, both from myself and from the three or four people who read this.

And to be honest, I've been using this as a semi-public officiating journal for so long that it's become a huge part of my ongoing improvement. After the game (and, occasionally, alas, during) I will frame the weird situation in my brain by saying, "How am I going to describe this on my blog? What's the situation? What's the necessary background?" That kind of reflection is, in some ways, more valuable than either the post or the responses. It's like the person who starts writing a letter to an advice columnist, but in the process of thinking out the problem to write about it, solves the problem.

Being anonymous keeps me honest. Having an audience keeps me accountable.

So, while the Referee article seems to say that a blog like this one can cause only harm and no good, I have to disagree. I'm a better official because of the three seasons I've posted my every game here. I will continue to write, and I'll continue to maintain anonymity. I will not post anything here I'd be embarrassed to see my name next to, but I'll keep anonymous so I can give honest self-appraisals without worrying about idiot fans (there's that word again) or angry coaches using my words against me. It is to my advantage that my readership is so small, since my Google ratings are low, and the odds I'll have anyone surf in to find me talking about a game that they themselves have heard about are very small. Not zero, but quite small.

Let the fourth blogged season commence! (5 weeks or so to tip-off, unless I get some warm-up games.)

Say it ain't so, Tim

Well, there goes the quiet summer...

In case you've been under a rock for the past few days, NBA official Tim Donaghy is reportedly under investigation for betting on games that he officiated over the last two seasons. He's a 13-year vet. Reports (like this one) indicate he's a guy with anger problems, gambling problems, and heavy debts.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that I have a response to all this.

I have to preface this by stating that Donaghy is, as of yet, just under investigation. I confess that I bought the Duke lacrosse hype, and I want to learn from that. Although the early reports don't look good for Donaghy, I still don't want to jump to any conclusions. I certainly don't want to take the next step and assume that Donaghy is the tip of the iceberg, and that many officials will follow.

What troubles me is the reaction that many people are having that they "knew it all along." Bullshit.

A few years back, before he became a punchline, Mel Gibson was in a movie called Conspiracy Theory. I didn't see the movie, but I loved the premise. Gibson played a conspiracy theorist nut job--he believed that there was some bizarre sinister government plan behind just about anything. In the course of the movie, he coincidentally comes up with a theory that turns out to be true, and the government starts going after him, generating the action of the movie.

I think most NBA fans are like Gibson's character here.

There have been so many wild-ass conspiracy theories about the NBA that it's not even funny. The first time I heard the word "fix" tossed around in association with an NBA game was in Chicago. The Suns had dropped the first two games of the 1993 NBA Championship Series in Phoenix to the Bulls, and the breathtakingly-homer Chicago press was prepared for a quick coronation at home, ideally via a sweep. The Suns won game three in Chicago 129-121 in triple overtime. I can't remember what calls the Chicago press and fans didn't like, and I can't find a detailed description of the game anywhere, but I heard the word "fix" tossed around. It was ridiculous, of course, but quite a few bizarre conspiracy theorists "knew" it.

I've heard the word used quite often since--as you have, I'm sure. If I'm feeling charitable, when someone says the NBA fixes its games, I'll ask for evidence, and usually the person will say "Look at all the calls that went against my team!" This is not evidence, of course. As any official knows, just about any call that goes against a fan's team will be considered a bad call. Most vilified calls--I'd say a majority--are proven on replay to be either correct or too damn close to reasonably criticize.

In the minority cases where a call is verifiably missed, even that is not enough to prove malevolent intent on the part of the official, which we need to have to prove a fix. Since we cannot know the mental state of an official (although officials have a better idea than non-officials do), there is no way to prove anything took place beyond simple human error. Anyone who has, in the past, believed more is a conspiracy theorist on the level of those who believe Area 51 is real, O.J. is innocent, and the moon landing was staged.

Now, with the Donaghy story, the world is different.

The conspiracy theorists now believe they were officiating experts who were onto something all along when, in reality, they were a blind squirrel who found a nut. Idiot fans will dust off Donaghy's name every time they believe a call is bad (and many of them, by the way, are correct calls).

And they will win over some other ref-haters.

The default position will go from "That ref is blind" to "That ref is crooked."

It's already happening.

Check out any blog (besides this fine, reasoned one, of course) dealing with the issue. You'll find people in the comments saying they knew it all along, recalling a specific call they didn't like from their childhoods and saying "See? The fix was on! Now I have proof!" Check out the ESPN poll on the Donaghy story. Nearly half are "not surprised" about Donaghy, and over half are convinced that he is "just the tip of the iceberg."

If Donaghy is innocent, it won't matter. People don't let the truth get in the way of conclusions like this, which are based on emotion rather than on facts.

If Donaghy is guilty, and the NBA does a call-by-call analysis of all of Donaghy's games, people will still believe that the scandal reaches beyond those few games. They will insist that their least favorite call is now the result dishonesty rather than incompetence.

Because the public's default position is that officials are horrible, any stain on any official will harm us all. The assumption that officials are crooked surely will spread beyond the NBA. Check out this great article where some top-level college basketball officials express their worry about exactly that issue.

It's illegal to bet on high school games, and yet I believe the fallout from the Donaghy scandal will even make it all the way down to me. When you're dealing with a fan population who is overwhelmingly predisposed to abuse us, this just added to the ammo. The call of "How much did they pay you, Blue?" that I heard at a high school softball playoff game last year now won't be considered ridiculous hyperbole, but a remote but fathomable possibility.

The only analogy I can come up with is a conversation I had with a friend of mine who is a Catholic priest. As the intensity of the priest sex-abuse scandals became apparent a few years back, I was enjoying dinner with Father John and his fellow priests at their rectory. Needless to say, they were devastated by the actions of others, and were almost certainly were going to face stereotyping and repercussions down the line. "When a bunch of priests go out and feed the poor," said one, dejectedly, "it doesn't make the news." I don't want to compare Donaghy's sins to the unspeakable ones of a few horrible priests and their bishops, but the analogy fits at least this far: as a significant batch of Americans now assume the worst about a man wearing a backward collar, so will virtually all fans, and the majority of players and coaches, assume the worst about the guy in the striped shirt. And, thanks to the Donaghy story, the level of that "worst" has just dipped to a new low. That hurts me both emotionally and practically.

I'm looking over this post, and it doesn't sound like me. It sounds way darker than I normally do. I suspect by the time the hoop season rolls around this autumn, I'll be chipper again, and as the public's tiny attention span moves away from Donaghy, I'll feel better about putting on the stripes.

But not now. Not today.

It's no exaggeration to say this is the worst event in American officiating history. I can't smile and pretend it's not.

This ought to be good.

Gary Sheffield was suspended for threatening actions towards umpire Greg Gibson after Gibson ejected him. And if he's not exonerated, he's threatening to make himself look like an idiot.

From ESPN:

Sheffield suggested to the Detroit Free Press that he would expose a "conspiracy" within the game if he is not cleared of wrongdoing.

"Once they see the tape, and they still suspend me, then we're going to talk about this conspiracy that's going on," he said. "If it ain't no conspiracy, then I shouldn't be suspended at all."

I can't wait! Maybe they all met at Area 51 to help frame O.J.!

An idiot in the stands

I was at a high school sporting event recently as a fan. I always forget how icky fans can be, since I'm not focused on them when I work. But this guy at a fairly rich HS took the cake.

The official made a call that he didn't like, and in response, he said something like this:

"I've never liked high school officials in general. They're terrible. You know something I've learned? A lot of them are bus drivers. Bus drivers! I mean it. Like, the one time in high school, I took the [local public transit organization] bus downtown, and the guy driving it was one of the football officials I'd had! I just couldn't believe it. A bus driver!"

I almost want to let this go without comment--the guy looks bad enough as it is--but I can't.

1. He's actually attacking a sports official for making an honest living driving a city bus.
2. He seems to think that a doctor, lawyer, or astrophysicist would make a better official than a butcher or bus driver. I wonder why he thinks this is true.
3. One of the things I like most about HS officiating is it is one of the very few parts of our society where people come together from different social strata and work as a team with a common goal. Some nights I work with a hot-shot lawyer or big-time businessman. Some nights I work with a guy from the toughest part of town who's trying to piece together a living with officiating as one of the pieces to his economic puzzle. And we are forced to work together under stressful circumstances.

Where else does this happen in our society? Not jury duty (the rich tend to get off that). Not in schools, which are racially and economically segregated worse than at any time since Brown vs. Board of Ed. Not in youth league sports, which are also segregated by community.

I honestly can't come up with another place, in my life anyway, where we work together other than as officials.

I think I can rest easy knowing that guy in the stands will reveal his butthead nature to the wrong guy someday, and as a result be grossly overcharged for electrical or mechanical work. And he'll deserve it.

What a manager does

I recently attended a Pittsburgh Pirates game. While there, I noticed that, as they introduced their manager, Jim Tracy, their Diamondvision showed highlights of him hollering at umpires.

Is this really the image the Pirates or Tracy want to give? Acting like an idiot is a highlight? Why not show him clapping, or stoically leading, or giving signals, or about a dozen other things?

A hilarious anti-umpire rant

How can I be righteously indignant about this when I'm laughing so hard?

Check it out.

P.S.: don't miss her P.S., which I'd love to hear shouted at me by an idiot fan. I'd laugh myself into an inadvertent whistle.

Why I hate ESPN's NFL crew

Way back in my first post, I promised I would hold announcers accountable if they got on officials' cases without any cause or knowledge. I even mentioned Joe Theismann by name, because he's probably the worst offender there is.

Today the worst offender made his worst offense.

When Mike Carey called the personal foul on the Redskins' Sean Taylor and they showed the replay, I'll admit it looked at first like he got the wrong guy. I said "Oh, that's a shame." But then I had something Joe Theismann will never have.

I had a thought.

Didn't Mike Carey say something after calling the foul--something that might explain the foul?

I rewound the TiVo.

Here's what I heard:

"After the ball was dead: Unsportsmanlike conduct, defense number 21. 15 yards and an automatic first down. Spitting in the face of an opponent. Number 21 is ejected."

I don't see how this could be any more clear.

But ESPN's NFL people, God love 'em, found a way to make themselves look like complete idiots--even worse than they do every week.

Because Mike Patrick started talking as Mike Carey was saying the word "spitting," they didn't hear a word of it.

So, for six minutes, we got massive ref-bashing--when the crew didn't even listen to the explanation!

And, because Mike Patrick opened his big trap too early, nobody in the television audience got to hear the explanation, unless they rewound their TiVos and concentrated through Carey's voice!

This wasn't a misunderstanding of a rule or a criticism of a judgement call, both of which I can live with more than this. This was a 6-minute harangue of Carey when the crew had the information they needed at their disposal, if they'd only bothered listening. They just were more interested in hearing themselves talk then in getting it right for once.

Nobody in the truck thought to listen to Carey.

Nobody on the crew thought to rewind the tape and see what he said.

They just assumed they knew better.

Here are some highlights from Larry, Curly, and Moe in the booth:

Maguire: "Watch this. Now watch this." (We could put this in anytime for Maguire, of course.)

Theismann: "Whoa! How do you do this? This is something that should be reviewed upstairs." (You idiot. A, it's not reviewable. B, if it were, in the third quarter, it wouldn't be upstairs doing it.) "You cannot give a 15-yard penalty do a player who did nothing." (No, you can't, Joe, and he didn't. Just like Mike Carey said about 30 seconds ago.)

Patrick: "That's terrible."

Theismann: "I'm very curious to see what the officials in the booth are going to do. It's an extremely bad call and an unbelieveable mistake."

Patrick: "It's not reviewable." (Thanks, Mike, for the first actual fact of this stretch. Of course, your decision to talk over Carey precipitated all of this, so you reap what you sow.)

Theismann: "In a game of this magnitude, the officials should not be allowed to make this kind of a mistake." (Nor should the broadcasters, you nitwit.)

Patrick: "Oh, that's awful."

Theismann: "And you know if it was Sean Taylor who hit Michael Pittman and that happened, I'd say the same thing." (Joe! It's not your bias that's ever bothered me! It's your complete lack of knowledge of the rules of football. But today, it's even worse than that--because the referee told you what happened, but you didn't listen. And on top of that, nobody on your crew, in the truck, or even in Bristol bothered to clue any of you in.) "That is an absolute terrible, terrible call. That means that nobody saw anything! They just threw a flag!" (HOLY LORD GOD! Theismann has just accused an officiating crew of complete incompetence--for making a call when they didn't see anything. And yet, it is THEISMANN who is making this call without knowing anything! Absolutely amazing!)

Patrick: "This is a shocking call." (Yup, Mike, it is. Your call of this game is shocking.)

Maguire: "Now watch what [Taylor] does here." (Yet another scintillating bit of analysis by Maguire.) "He's jawing!"

Theismann: "All he's doing is jawing. That's all. He's talking. Then Carey starts to step in. Michael Pittman hits Sean Taylor, and they charge the penalty to Sean Taylor."

Patrick: "I have all the respect in the world for this officiating crew, but they missed that one." (Mike! If you had respect for them, why didn't you listen to Carey? He told you what happened.) "Hopefully, that call will not have anything to do with the outcome of this game."

Theismann: "Now unfortunately, the other part of that is that the coaches are mad at Sean Taylor. They get mad at him for creating and giving the Bucs this opportunity, and he doesn't deserve it."

Patrick: "And he didn't do it."

Maguire: "Well, look at the players on the sideline. They're not even talking to him. Maybe the referee heard him say something, but the swing was by Pittman."

--At this point, something interesting happens. Paul Maguire starts to become the closest thing in the room to the voice of reason. A thought is forming in his head at glacial speed...but since he's actually having a thought, he's the MENSA member of the crew. That's rather like having Hugh Hefner the president of your chastity club, but I digress. He's noticing that the Washington players and coaches aren't mad. Nobody in the joint is yelling at the officials except the stooges in the booth. Not even Taylor is hot! So he's starting to think that maybe there's an explanation to this.

Then, ESPN goes to a commercial.

Now surely, one would think...SURELY the fine folks at ESPN would take this opportunity to clue in its crew.

Nope.

After the break, Sean Taylor is being escorted to the locker room. Why? Because he has been ejected. How do I know this? I heard Mike Carey say it (and, more importantly, say why). We pick up with our stooge crew:

Maguire: "Monte Kiffin was out in the middle of the field. I don't know, was he thrown out of the game? They didn't say anything." (See Mike Carey's words above, Paul. He did. It's just the three of you are such blowhards that you didn't listen, and your crew didn't care to inform you of what was said.)

Patrick: "Sean Taylor is leaving the field, going to the locker room. He has certainly had his problems, but if he's being punished for this, they're wrong."

Yup. Nobody got to them even during the break!

Patrick: "He was ejected from the ballgame, we are told." (Just now? HE TOLD YOU WHEN HE MADE THE CALL!) "And now it's taking on ridiculous proportions." (Truer words were never spoken, Mike. You make yourself look stupider and stupider with each word.)

Maguire: "Joe, what happened was, the word we got, is that he spit in Pittman's face."

--Paul Maguire! The voice of reason! And too late! Some stats:

Time Mike Carey made his public announcement: 6:36:40 EST.
Time the ESPN crew figured out the spitting and the ejection: 6:42:00 EST.

In between they had time to say all of the above.

Maguire: "If you spit in my face, I don't care how big you are, I'm going to smack you."

Patrick: "If he did that, and the referee saw it, then he deserves the penalty and he deserves to be ejected."

Theismann: "Then the official is correct."

Now, I'll wait for the apology for the allegations of Carey's incompetence and the admissions that the last 6 minutes of this broadcast were completely wrong and a pathetic farce:

(none).

I nominate this for the worst example of sportscasting in history. Anyone wish to second?

Game log: 10/15/2005

I had two games today--a high school summer league. It was my first time on the court since April. On the whole, I'm afraid it showed physically--I'm out of shape. By the end of the second game, I had turned a red color that I shouldn't turn. Time to get to the gym--I have about 6 weeks to improve my conditioning. I HATE the gym, and I HATE running, but I'll do what I've got to do.

The games were mostly uneventful. The second game was notable for a timer who was a massive butthead. He was, it appeared, a parent for the green team. I walked up to him before the game and introduced myself.

"Hey, I'm Blog."
Yo! What up, homie?
[thinking this is a major moron--he was responding to my greeting with sarcasm--but maintaining politeness] "Tell me who you are."
I'm Johnny. I'm the guy who's gonna be yelling at you all day.
[thinking this guy had better not give me any trouble from the table or he'll go home]: "Why are you going to do that?"
To get some of the calls to go my way.
"It doesn't work."

Does this guy introduce himself to everybody saying he's going to verbally abuse them? What an idiot. But there were no problems that game.

Things to work on:

GAME ONE: Foul count was uneven in the second half. Not much I could do about it, really--couldn't find any "coach pacification fouls." I'm not a big fan of the Coach Pacification Foul, but it's something I've been taught, and it's fairly routine. Occasionally you have to toot a borderline one for game management purposes. As long as it really exists, you're fine.

Thank goodness the players were as tired as I was in the second half. That made a huge difference.

GAME TWO: I'm pleased with that one. There were several ugly rebound fouls early. Why do so many players believe that boxing out entails knocking your opponent backwards several feet? And why do players who are boxed out believe they can push their opponents in the back? I called four of these in the first quarter--all on white. I called none in the second half, because they weren't there. I love it when the players learn.

I really mucked up a foul on white in the second half. #15 drove for an uncontested layup. She missed. Blue got the rebound, and I saw #15 run back in from the baseline. I could tell she was upset, and was ready to ding her for a foul--she was flailing about wildly in frustration. She whipped her arms in, and I went up for the foul call...but dammit, I anticipated rather than saw. As wild and ugly as her movements her, and although I give myself a pat on the back for seeing beyond the movements to the mind of the player, I called what I thought might happen instead of what actually happened. I just need to wait a half-a-beat more before blowing that whistle.

One other thing to work on: I have a TERRIBLE habit of nodding or shaking my head when I think a block was clean or a kid didn't travel or whatever. That's awful because if my partner has his/her eyes out of his/her area (and yes, it happens sometimes) and calls the foul, I've sold him/her down the river. I can't do that. I MUST get rid of this bad habit.

Things I did well: Management, cleaned up post play, had a sense of where the game was at all times

Things I need to work on: Conditioning, nodding, quick call for nonexistent anticipated foul.

NEXT UP: No games currently scheduled. I may try to get in a couple more games in early November, but I'm reasonably with it right now, so I may wait until scrimmages start in mid-to-late November.

Game Log 10/20/2006: Well, this one is behind me.

Funny--when I really think about the first of my two games today, I can recall only two errors. But they were bad--and the net result was my worst game in years.

The head coach for Blue didn't help. I could actually hear her coaching her team to foul the other team. "Bump her! Let her know you're there!" What the hell? 32 was giving forearm shivers to the big kid for white all the time. I called a couple. They put somebody else on her. Then came the double fouls.

That's right...I had two double fouls. I normally don't call more than one in a season; but I had two in a half this time. I usually find it's an effective means to stop ugliness. The first, I had white reaching around to grab Blue, and Blue pushed her in the back. Double foul. I explained it quickly and went away. The Blue player pronounced my call "bullshit." Partner had my back; technical foul. I stand by call. Partner said: "I trust you."

About five minutes later, White came down to post up, and Blue was waiting with their customary forearm shove. White came down with her forearms up to. They collided like a pulling guard and a linebacker. Double foul. Can't have that shit. I stand by that.

The net result is that we were sort of unpopular at this point. The double foul is never popular, but it's what I had in each of these cases. Blue had only 2 players on its bench; White had zero. I'm hoping that these calls will ease things up. They don't really.

Then, my first big mistake, which, upon analysis, was actually a combination of three mistakes.

Eleven seconds left in the half. We run down the floor. There are a couple of passes. White scores. I'm waiting for the buzzer. We run back down to Blue's end of the floor. I have a blocking foul on White. We look up. There are three seconds on the clock, and White says the clock started late. I am to check it out.

At this point, I've already committed Error Number One. Neither my partner nor I have looked at the clock to see that it started. Yeah, I know this was a weekend league with a clock on the sideline, which is hard to see...but still, we've got to do that.

Next, I commit Error Number Two. I didn't get together with my partner. She might have had some information, and it would have slowed me down. I needed to be slowed down to figure out all that was going on.

I go to the table. I say: "What happened?" She says: "I didn't start the clock on time." I say: "Was it more than three seconds?" This is a minor, unnumbered error...the question was leading. I would have done better to say "How late were you?"

She said it was more than three seconds. So this leads me to wipe off the foul. I never, ever should have done that. Dammit. Error Number Three.

I've checked the rule book, and it says what I thought it said: I need to have definite knowledge to make a fix. Neither my partner or I did. Does the timer's knowledge count as definite? Upon reflection, I'd say not. I think the correct thing to do was to keep three seconds on the clock. Second choice was to fix the time, but to let Blue shoot their one-and-one. But I wiped off the foul.

I talked with a veteran official and told him our situation...a "what would you do?" situation...and he said "Gee, that's a tough one." But as I see it in the rule book and case book, I blew it. Better in fall league, I guess, but I'm still angry that I made the wrong call and managed to leave my partner out in the cold as I did so.

I compounded this in the second half with a bad block call.

It was a bizarre play. Blue is back on defense. She's set. White goes up and grazes her thigh a little. I have a no-call at that point. But because she grazed her thigh, White loses her balance and we have an ugly three-car pileup featuring an injury. I've got to toot my whistle. And I call...a block??? Huh?

I feel like I've been indoctrinated to the point of view that a Player Control foul needs to have fairly good contact on the torso. That didn't quite happen here...it was just a weird pileup. But Blue didn't do anything wrong. Yet, when I went to call the foul, I saw it as White being tripped and decided in my head that she must have been set too wide. God damn it, I've made this mistake before, so it's inexcusable now. That's a PC foul. Sure, the original contact was light and not worthy of a call, but the subsequent contact counts too.

An idiot mother for Blue screamed. Loud. For a while. And this is where things got interesting. As I was turning to the gym manager to ask her for some help, number 32 for White turned to her and spoke at some length. It felt like 15 seconds...not just one second, but a paragraph's worth. Calmly. And when she finished, the majority of the crowd cheered. From there, I didn't hear from any parent again. Thank you, White 32.

The rest of the game was a little smoother. Thankfully, both teams switched to a zone, and it cleaned up. And the second game was not a big problem. I'm glad, because the two big mistakes took me out.

That might be what I take from today. I need to have a much shorter memory. I don't think I did poor work other than the two calls, but it took effort to get focused after the two oh-shit messups.

I'm glad I'm back out there next week. I need to put this one behind me.

THINGS I DID WELL: I'm not in the mood to fill this out.

THINGS TO WORK ON: SLOW THE HELL DOWN when faced with a bizarre situation. Bring my partner in. Watch the clock. Call no "legs too far apart" blocking fouls again unless the player is nearly doing the splits.

Sure, I'm a little rusty, but this performance wasn't good enough. I need to do far better.