Coupeville Sports

“That’s why I’m asking you, coach! I DON’T KNOW THE RULES!!!” (Shelli Trumbull photos)

“Ball four! Touchdown!! Um … guys … guys?”

“Wait! Wait! My lips are dry again and now the thwistle is thuck to my wips!!!”

“You sir, are an idiot!!”

It’s Friday — time to get your referee bingo cards ready.

If tonight’s trio of stripe-clad bumblers and back-stabbers manages to fill in enough of the spots on your game board, you win the chance to scream like a loon at them as they giggle at half-court.

Play along with us, during this hallowed season of the god-awful ref. Perch on the edge of your seat and wonder — tonight, will they:

A) Let a visiting player throw a punch and NOT eject him?

B) Give a visiting player two technical fouls and NOT eject him?

C) Give a visiting player five fouls and NOT remove him from the game?

D) Ignore a shot that goes off the top of the backboard and decide to just let play go on because their lips are too dry to blow the whistle?

E) Shove a player in the back and then call a technical on the PLAYER?

F) Call a foul on not the first or second, but THIRD player, to be yanked to the floor in a chain-reaction free-fall?

G) Watch a player trip over her own feet and then call a foul on a defender standing a good ten feet away?

H) Call a 5-second violation that allows one team to have a last-second shot to tie or win a game, then reverse yourself after the third ref says he thinks he heard the opposing coach call for a timeout, even though he was nowhere in the vicinity?

I) Long so desperately for the spotlight that you call a nonexistent foul with 1.8 seconds to go in a tied game, just so you can trot out to mid-court like a proud little show-horse with a new ribbon in its hair, then explain the “foul” to all of us peons as if we were really, really, really stupid second graders who had just left the rain forest and never seen a basketball game before.

J) Just go bat-shit crazy and openly walk up to the Coupeville coaches before tip-off tonight and, with a smirk, nod and say, “Yep, we’re gonna screw you for no good reason tonight! It’s what we do, man!!”

K) Finally figure out who I am, and, in honor of me naming some of you “Little Napoleon,” “Mr. Ed,” “The Bandit Queen,” “Fibber McGee” and “Commander Big Britches,” have me ejected from the CHS sports complex before tip-off?

Let the martyrdom begin!!