Reflections of a Retired Official... Again!

Well, Tuesday marked my last day of work. I only had one hour, and I reffed the Division 3 men's championship where one of my former bishopric member's went home with a t-shirt.
And so it was... until Fall comes around.
Now we look back on the good times of the year... and then I say to myself, "Wow, I've already blogged so much about the funny/interesting/annoying stuff of officiating this year that I've got nothing else to say!"
Except this: Last Wednesday I had a full-blown reconciliation meeting with the guys who followed me home. I went with the intention of getting the meeting over with as soon as possible and delivering the message that I really held nothing against them for their one act of thoughtless impulsiveness. I let this be known pretty much right away in our little get together, but the fellow running the whole business (an old, mellow gentleman who gets paid to be old and mellow) had a much longer process in mind... a much longer and much more official process.
So the guys issued formal apologies, and very sincere I might add. At least, it felt sincere. I told them that I had much worse on my mission, and as long as they weren't Lakers fans, they were already forgiven. (They were from California, but they were not on the dark side... in fact they were anti-Jazz fans!) Whatever they did didn't matter anymore, except for the suspensions they have to fill come Fall semester. And now it's all over, and they will be ever more respectful and keep cooler heads during their games. We could use more players like them.
I've always thought that you can tell a lot about a man by his actions on the basketball court. Exercising self-control to the degree of keeping your temper and irrationality in check while still having a competitive edge is one of the highest degrees of self-mastery, in my opinion. That's why girls are so much more spiritual than guys. I mean, how often do you see one of them resort to absolute carnality in the heat of a basketball game?
You can quote me on that one.
Ultimately, this year with the stripes has been surprisingly rewarding. As much as I complain and share the stories of the bad ones, there were a whole lot of good ones who told us, "Hey, you guys did a good job." And we always did a good job. This growing multitude of generally good guys is joined by the losing team of the Division 3 championship (as well as the winning team, I reffed them about abigilion times and they rarely complained), and by my three new friends on Facebook, two of which were riding in a Blue Sedan a few weeks ago.

Warm fuzzies all around!!!