Last week’s column had me falling down in Vassar and being reminded of it weeks later in my classroom.

Here is another story that happened at Vassar.

I like to think of this one as poetic justice.

The coach of the team playing Vassar (Kevin) was a great baseball umpire. I umpired several games as his partner, and he was an outstanding umpire.

However, away from that, he was a real piece of work (that is the only printable description I can think of).

Once, when he was an assistant coach at a different school (Saginaw Swan Valley), he had the nerve to call me at home after a game to complain about a decision that one of my crew made that “cost his team the game.”

He said, “Your head linesman is a terrible official, and he teaches elementary school in St. Charles. His call cost us the game and moved us behind St. Charles in the league standings. He did that intentionally.”

I replied, “Coach, as a fellow official, you know better than to call me at home,” and I hung up.

Anyway, Kevin’s team had the ball on the Vassar three-yard line and was about to score and take the lead fairly late in the game.

Kevin called a time-out and had his assistant coach enter the field to talk to the team (legal) but, at the same time, he had his quarterback come to the sidelines to talk to him. That then became an illegal conference, resulting in a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty.

His team then did not score and lost the game.

I must confess that it didn’t make me sad that my penalty call probably caused his team to lose.

Oh, and Kevin did NOT call me post-game to complain.

Possibly the worst thing a football official can do is to blow an inadvertent whistle.

It usually happens when the whistle is blown too early before a tackle is completed and a fumble occurs. There is absolutely no way to rectify the situation and make things right.

I have often said that there are only two groups of officials: those who admit to having blown an inadvertent whistle and those who say they never have and are lying.

I have had my share of inadvertent whistles, and you never forget them.

A college official had one in the first Michigan State University game this fall and cost MSU a touchdown with a quick whistle.

This one may have been my worst.

It was in the fourth quarter, and the team on defense was ahead by one touchdown, but the team on offense was driving to tie the game.

The quarterback threw a swing pass to the halfback in the left flat. The pass hit his shoulder pad and ricocheted off.

I blew the whistle for an incomplete pass too quickly.

Just before the ball hit the ground, a defensive back intercepted the deflected pass and had 50 yards of nothing by daylight for a touchdown and a 14-point lead.

Of course, my whistle killed the play, and, by rule, the ball remained with the original team.

The coach of the defensive team was kind. He just said, “We had better not lose.”

Thankfully, they did not lose, and I was able to sleep that night.

Another inadvertent whistle I won’t forget happened at a ninth-grade game in Frankenmuth.

I was the referee. Frankenmuth ran a fullback dive play up the middle. he fullback gained about five yards, and there was a big crowd of players trying to tackle him. I thought his forward progress was stopped and blew the whistle (I might add that, from my vantage point, it was NOT my place to have blown the whistle, another mistake).

Oops.

Running toward me was a defensive player who, obviously, stole the ball and was about to run past me and score a touchdown for the defense.

By rule, however, the ball is dead when the whistle is blown.

So the defense did get the ball where it was when I blew the whistle, but no touchdown.

I had to go to the Frankenmuth coach to confess and explain. He was the retired varsity coach who had agreed to come back and help with the freshmen and knew me quite well.

He said, “I wondered what happened out there.”

He was pretty calm about my error. Besides, they were winning handily, anyway.

Les Miller, of Hubbard Lake, has retired after 53 years officiating multiple sports around Michigan. He can be reached at theoldref@yahoo.com.