Incredible caption work on that header photo.

That’s a question UCLA soccer fans have been asking for about ten years.

This is going in my haggadah this year.

I mean, I don’t think the car is the issue, he could take the Metra Electric (shit, he could even take the South Shore Line in if he wanted) to Museum Campus or 18th street, or CTA to the Roosevelt stop if he doesn’t mind walking a couple of blocks more.

I mean, we basically expect that the right player is going to step to the foul line to shoot the free throws, I guess. Generally it’s not an issue, you’d be surprised if someone on your team who didn’t just try to shoot the ball was trying to shoot free throws, right? On a shooting foul, the folks I work with just…

Ya, general practice here (South Carolina Lowcountry) is to identify the shooter if a timeout is called (exactly like you said) or something else happens that takes the players away from the free throw situation, but I only occasionally work with folks who identify the shooter on every foul. I’m starting that practice…

This is a good lesson to make it part of my practice, and also a good example of the little differences between top quality officials like yourself and casual duffers like me!

Speaking as a referee who works this level of basketball, we usually don’t identify the shooter by number to each other as we rotate positions to tell the table who the foul was on and administer the free throws. The official who administers the free throws by throwing the ball to the free thrower is vanishingly…

As a regular official of Middle School CYO games, I can say that if a player hung on the rim, I would probably look up and say “holy shit, get buckets, dunking in middle school” before the thought of blowing for a T even entered my mind. (But you’re right that calling a third in a row is a bad, bad look)

Aren’t the Cubs more of a Downer’s Grove or a Libertyville team?

It’s shocking that there’s a major California institution more malevolent and corrupt than the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, but the UC Regents are undefeated in that arena, I think.

If the Raiders lease Memorial Stadium and somehow bail out the UC Regents and their almost-bankrupting of Cal with those moronic stadium renovations and usurious loan choices, they’ll go out of town as conquering heroes, so there’s absolutely no possibility of that option happening.

I mostly meant that they’re under-resourced, but it’s true that the riskier work, too, is amazing!

It’s amazing that even while being Univisioned y’all can produce incredible work like this. Thank you.

That was a really good analogy, friend.

Tyrod “Perfectly Adequate” Taylor

I’m a liberal youth soccer referee in South Carolina, I run into a couple of these guys every year, but this is on the wilder end for sure. Seems like the kind of coach who checks the first two boxes of ask-tell-dismiss in the first ten minutes of the U-10 game.

Just glad you spelled y’all correctly.

I genuinely looked up whether Kluwe had kicked any field goals in his career, but it looks like he didn’t!

Former UChicago student who spent way too much time and money at Staropolska after refereeing kids soccer on the Northside, but somehow I think that’s probably worse for me tbh.