[eweissenbach]

When I was coaching high school basketball we played an away game and one of the officials was a novice. I had been warned by the other school's athletic director and he apologized, but had been put in a bad situation by a last minute cancellation by the official that was supposed to work. Well we had a number of run-ins during the game, disagreement on calls, which is not unusual, but the number was unusual. The other referee was known to me and was competent, but this replacement ref wasn't satisfied to let him control the game, oh no, he made every call all over the court. Finally in the fourth quarter of a close game one of my guards was dribbling the ball into our end of the court, when the ball accidentally hit his foot. It bounced to one of my other players who picked it up when the whistle suddenly blew. The replacement official called out "kicking the ball" and gave the other team posession. I went ballistic and motioned to him to come over to discuss the call, but he refused. I told the other ref that the call was ridiculous, but he said, sorry coach, but it wasn't my call. So I called a timeout and told by assistant to take the huddle. I went to the scorers table and again motioned him to come talk to me, but again, he refused. So I had to walk across the floor to the opponents side of the court while they all booed me, and confront him. I said "Sir, you do know that in order for that to be a violation it has to be intentional don't you?" He nodded yes - so I said "well you have had the opportunity to watch my team for over an hour now and you should know that we are barely able to pass the ball accurately with our hands. We most definitely do not intentionally try to pass it by kicking it." He said "coach if you don't go back to the bench I am going to have to call a technical foul" I said "THAT would be by far the best call you have made all night". He didn't call the T and he didn't change the decision, but at least it gave me a story to tell for the last 30 years. BTW we won by 2 points -- Alls well that ends well!d