An open letter to the refs of my daughters' game this afternoon
 

OK, boys. Last week we tried to show you what travelling was. You can't take three steps after you've picked up your dribble, you can't take a bunny hop before putting up a jumper. You can't shove a girl into the scorers table without a call, you can't let the other team pick up the ball and throw it in after a score (that's a technical foul, by the way).

Just to let you know, three of the players' moms are attornies, and they've all got PMS.

Just sayin'


(I got T-d up last week after our girl got hacked and made they shot - refs disallowed the shot, we missed the freebies, they got a rebound, broke away, and the girl took no less than 3 steps prior to making her layup. We got called for a foul on the shot, and she made her free throw... as well as the free throws on the technical. We were down by one, would've gone up by one, instead we went down by seven... I lost it)

You are a very brave man!

Hell, I'm the assistant coach. I'm there to crack jokes when things get too serious.

I'm calling shenanigan on the ref.

I remember some terrible refs we had back in the day, I got tackled twice with no call. So I decided there was an easy way to score, drive down the lane and throw elbows at anyone who came near me. I never got a foul and made some easy layup's, but the coach benched me for it, lol. The coach was making calls to the league office at halftime.

How old are the kids?

7.

So, at what point do you just laugh and realize, THEY'RE SEVEN YEARS OLD

When they're 14.

I'm kidding. I have no idea how old they are.

But, if we're talking about drawing tech. fouls, I hope these are high school kids.

I used to ref 1st through 6th graders at the local rec center.

It was a lot of fun because we had a teach first policy that allowed us to blow the whistle to stop the game, explain to the kids what they did wrong and what they need to do to play correctly.

They usually got the ball back if it was a traveling violation, double dribble, or carrying the first few times, but after that it was by the book with explainations to the kids every time until the understood. Coaches loved the system because we always got the kid's undivided attention.

You wouldn't believe how fast they picked up on the rules when if was explained to them. By the 3rd week we didn't have to worry about the stuff you described because most of them knew the rules. It was a very easy job after that.


If the refs were letting them get away with it, especially without explaining the rules, they will never learn correctly.

What Braincase failed to mention is that the girl that got away with the three steps is considered the Michael Jordan of her league, and we all know that the stars get special treatment.

I coached a boy's b-ball team for three years (from their 6th through 8th grades) and the officiating always drove me nuts. Not that they made bad calls, that's a given at any level, but they barely knew the rules. We lost one game because the ref called traveling on my player for moving along the baseline after a made basket. I went ballistic and got a technical foul which probably cost us the game.

Whoa. That's pretty bad.

She was probably the hulking kid that towers over the others pulling her Patrick Ewing imitation with the 23 step hook shot down the middle of the lane.