Embarrassing moments in Forestville

If you work long enough you’ll make a fool of yourself. Two memorable incidents happened to me at Forestville High School.

My dad, Mark Hammond, officiated football, basketball and baseball from the 1930s through the 1970s. He encouraged me to be a sports official after taking me and my younger brother, Tom, to various games he officiated across Western New York. We even refereed together one memorable night during my first year of girls basketball.

He had many insightful pointers for me, one based on an incident that happened to him early in his career on the Forestville basketball court.

“Never backpedal when refereeing,” he told me. “Always run with your head turned back at the action after checking the backcourt for obstructions.”

A shower led to an embarrassing incident at Forestville High School.

Seems he backpedaled his way into a full flip over a cheerleader crouching on the court pre-jump and was out of action for a few weeks with a bad back. Of course, the crowd loved it. The cheerleader? She was fine.

My first embarrassing moment at the Home of the Hornets involved an extra piece of clothing.

Running down the court one night, a Forestville coach dangled a black sock in front of my face. Urged on by his giggling bench players he laughingly asked, “Lose something, ref?”

I had grabbed my black referee pants from the dryer that day and good old static-cling left the sock firmly stuck in a pant leg. But not for long.

It fell from my pants early in the first quarter. Right in front of the team bench. Hilarious, right?

A black sock like this one amused the Forestville High School basketball team at my expense.

Of course I blamed my wife for the disaster. “Add a dryer sheet next time, dummy,” she compassionately responded.

The second incident happened after I had worked a girls junior varsity basketball game with veteran official Judy Mowery. We were in separate coaching offices to change and shower when it all went down.

Stepping from the shower, I moved to retrieve my towel from an adjacent room. Just as I reached the doorway, the wall-sized shade covering the window in the locker room suddenly and inexplicably snapped all the way up.

Hearing players approaching, I quickly slammed the door to the shower room, still missing my towel. Of course, there was nothing to cover or dry myself with either.

The noise of the shade clattering up and the door slam drew the attention of the visiting players.

Investigating, they rounded the corner, spotted my wet footprints and towel, then put two and two together.

“He’s trapped,” one gleeful girl yelled.

“Who’s trapped?” they all wanted to know.

Noticing my referee shirt they guessed my identity.

“The old, fat, bald ref with glasses and a beard,” one squealed to howls of laughter.

I was in my 30s and my hair was admittedly thinning, but the rest of her description was more or less accurate.

Anyway, I was trapped and they knew it. But do you think they went and told somebody, anybody of my predicament? Not a chance. They even took turns waiting by the window to keep me from making an escape.

I was stuck until halftime when the varsity referees returned to the changing room and saved my thoroughly bare, and as we all now know, ample behind, literally.

It made for a great story at the next officials’ meeting. I was the butt, pun intended, of their jokes for longer than I would have preferred.

Even more likely, the tale of the naked ref in Forestville was one those devious young ladies told friends and family for years. Lucky me, an old, fat, bald living legend with glasses and a beard.

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Bill Hammond is a former EVENING OBSERVER Sports Editor who spent more than 50 years as a sports official.