Chapter 4

The following weeks had gone by fairly fast. The holidays for Jack were spent refereeing Christmas basketball tournaments. If Jack wasn’t refereeing, his time when school was out was spent at the club.

He had refereed one game that had an interesting incident. The home team was down by eight points with about ten minutes gone in the second half. It was obvious that they just weren’t playing up to their potential. Jack called a personal foul one of their players and their coach jumped up and down and told Jack he was blind as a bat. Besides his saying that he took a few steps onto the court and was waving his hands. Jack had no recourse and he called a technical foul. This seemed to fire up this coach’s team and they played better but they still lost the game by two points.

After the game was over the coach came into the room where Jack was changing clothes and he apologized to Jack. He said he needed to fire his team up and thought he could do this if he could provoke Jack to call the technical. Jack accepted his apology saying it was no big thing and he understood. After the coach left Jack thought some of the other coaches in games he refereed in the past had done this same thing but this was the first coach to admit that he did it.

One early evening Jack was at the club in the lounge having a beer when Trish took a seat on the barstool next to him. He acknowledged her presence and offered to buy her a drink.

“Thanks and a diet soda would be nice but I could use your help.”

After signaling the bartender for a diet soda he said, “Why, what’s the matter?”

“Lisa Edwards was scheduled to be one of my lecturers talking about being a commentator on the PGA tour and some interesting things that have happened on the tour. She told me she needed to cancel out because of a scheduling change the network made. I can put the arm on Nick or one of his assistants to be a sub but I am always putting the arm on them and I would like to avoid doing that. How about you being the lecturer?”

“I don’t think the members would be interested in me giving them a history lesson.”

“Not that, talk about basketball and refereeing.”

He was thinking about what Trish had asked and at the same time, he looked around at the few people who were in the lounge. He and Trish were the only ones sitting at this side of this somewhat large circular type bar.

Turning on his barstool to face Trish more he could see that her skirt had ridden up and was up above her knees. Sliding a hand under her skirt and caressing the inside of her upper thigh he said, “What do I get if I do this?”

Trish did a quick look around to see if anyone was aware of what was happening and must have thought no one could see since she didn’t do anything to remove his hand. She may even have spread her legs a little to encourage him but he didn’t move his hand any higher.

Leaning closer to him and in a low sexy voice she said, “Anything you want.”

His hand stayed there for about half a minute caressing the soft skin of her inner thigh while his eyes were gazing into her eyes. Turning back to face the bar and removing his hand he said, “I will keep that in mind, and because of what you just said I will give this talk.”

Placing her hand high up on his thigh to give it a squeeze she thanked him and left the lounge. He watched her nice backside with its enticing jiggle as she walked away.

Jack was dating Amy and had taken her out a few times. He had come to know she was a good person and he enjoyed her company. Seeing her eating peanuts and throwing the shells on the floor was not what you would expect a respected jurist to do but “Jakes” was a place you do that at.

Jack had run into Doris Connelly one night at the club. She invited him over to her condo she said for a drink. The look she gave him when she extended that invitation indicated it could be for something more and it was with him taking her to bed. Doris had changed the language she used when they had sex and she told him it was more natural for her to talk that way. She said that now some of her dates are repeaters unlike in the past where it seemed for the most part that they were one-time-only dates. She thought the language change she had made was responsible for this.

One day in the late afternoon, Jack was sitting at a table in the lounge with his friend Ken Stillman. Jack and Ken were finishing off what was left in the pitcher of beer Jack had bought to celebrate Ken’s birthday. Ken was a widower whose wife had succumbed to cancer almost a year ago. Jack was pouring what remained of the beer into their glasses when Trish who was walking by said hello.

“Now there goes a good-looking woman,” said Ken.

“You know Ken, it might be time for you to start dating. If you think Trish is a good-looking woman why don’t you ask her out?”

“You think she would go out with me?”

“Why not, you are only a few years older than her and you are a decent-looking guy, but more importantly you are a nice guy. I think she would.”

“I’ll think about doing that as with Debbie’s passing I do miss female companionship if you know what I mean.”

“I do and if I were you I would ask Trish out. What do you have to lose?”

With the beer finished they both got up to leave. Jack said he needed to tap a kidney and said good-by to Ken. After doing the tapping and zippering up, Jack went to Trish’s office and found her sitting at her desk.

“What brings you here?” said Trish.

“Remember when you said, “Anything you want?”

“Yes but it looks to me you are pretty tight with Amy Mitchell so why...?”

“Slow down and hear me out. That’s not what I want..., although I know with you it would be pretty good. It’s that if Ken Stillman asks you to go out with him I want you to accept his invitation and go out with him. He is a nice guy and he thinks you are one good-looking woman which you certainly are.”

“I know in talking to him that he seems like a nice guy. Do you think he is going ask me out?”

“Chances are fifty-fifty he will, so please go out with him and we will be even.”

“Not sure I want to be even with you if I do that, but if Ken does ask, I will go out with him.”

Having done his good deed for the day Jack said good-bye and left the club.

The basketball games he was refereeing followed a pattern of some being close games and some being blowouts. A few times he had discussions with the coaches about something that happened on the court when they would dispute a call Jack made. He simply asked them when they had time to review the video with an open mind and see who was right. More often than not he would receive a note or when he refereed the next game with this coach they would tell Jack that he had made the right call.

If there was a time when the coach was right and Jack was wrong, he would apologize to the coach and say he would try and do better. Jack doing that caused the coaches to respect him as a referee and he received positive comments from them when they submitted reviews of his performance.

Jack gave his lecture to the twenty-six club members who were there to hear him. He gave his history from playing college basketball to how he became a referee and mentioned some of the games he had refereed. He explained the two most common fouls of blocking and charging. This transitioned into some of the other fouls and why referees were using more and more video replays to ensure the call being made is correct. He explained the emphasis this year was on calling the embellishing technical foul and why it was being done. Jack noticed a number of the attendees nodding their heads in agreement.

“A referee needs to know all the rules and apply them correctly. Some people sitting in the stands or watching it on TV seem to think it is an easy thing to do but let me give you a situation and tell me what you would do if you were the referee. Player A is dribbling the ball when Player B purposely trips Player A and the foul is whistled. Player A is angry and throws the ball hard at Player B striking him. Both Players now go at each other and one of the coaches runs onto the floor to separate these two players while the other coach sits on the bench. You are the referee, after the order is restored what fouls do you call and how is the ball put back in play?”

That resulted in several people having differing opinions on what the calls should be. Jack explained the penalties called and said situations as this have happened. Most of these out-of-ordinary situations are covered in a casebook which each official reads and commits to memory.