I arrived a couple minutes late to my 13-year-old daughter’s middle school basketball game last week.

The scoreboard indicated six minutes left in the first period. I didn’t see my daughter on the floor, and I couldn’t see their team’s bench from my spot on the bleachers.

Within seconds I became distracted by a boisterous father sitting a few rows ahead of me.

“CALL THE FOUL!”

“YOU HAVE A WHISTLE!”

Yep, this middle-aged man was screaming at the two referees, both of whom looked like they couldn’t have been older than 17 years old.

I also heard the man talking loudly to himself, and I’m sure the team and the referees heard this one too:

“What are they spending our tax dollars on? Not these (expletive deleted) referees!”

Roads. Medicare. National defense. But apparently not middle school basketball referees.

A couple more minutes passed and I noticed something I never noticed at one of my daughter’s basketball games: The teams were running plays and making shots.

This can’t be right.

I stood up to find the team’s bench, and sure enough, I didn’t see my daughter on the sidelines. I was obviously watching the wrong game. My other three kids were with me at the game, and my oldest son finally noticed my confusion.

“I bet the JV team is playing in the other gym,” he said.

The other gym? This school had a second gym? I’d been to a couple dozen events at this school between band and sports, and I only ever went inside one gym.

“There’s another gym, Dad,” My son said. “Everybody knows there’s another gym.”

We stood up and left the raging parent and efficient basketball behind. I followed my son, a fifth grader who doesn’t attend middle school, because he said he promised he knew the location of this apparent second gym.

He had no clue.

We wandered the halls of the middle school for a few minutes before we finally discovered that, yes, indeed, a second gym existed.

“This is the stinky gym,” my youngest daughter told me as we entered. “It’s always stinky in here.”

Always?! So the fourth grader (who also doesn’t attend middle school) knew about this gym too?

As we entered the gym, I looked up at the scoreboard. The score: Visitors up 18-4. That’s more like it. That’s the JV team I know and love.

Then I noticed the clock — less than a minute remained in the second quarter. I glanced at the time on my phone. Even after sitting in the wrong gym and getting lost in the hallways, we made it to the game only 20 minutes after the start time.

One theory: The JV games go MUCH faster because the referees appear to be even younger high school kids, and the official scorers (i.e. the people responsible for starting and stopping the game clock) are middle school kids. The ref needs to whistle about four to five times before anyone ever thinks to stop the game clock.

My daughter’s games so far this season have yet to exceed 45 minutes, halftime included. The team is made up of mostly new, inexperienced players. My daughter plays excellent defense but has almost never actually practiced shooting a basketball in her spare time (and she played on the team last year). Passes get thrown into the bleachers. Airballs go deep out of bounds. The clock don’t stop.

I didn’t need to hear the belligerent parent over in the next gym to know that I much prefer to watch these JV games, but it’s one of about 100 reasons why I enjoy the “lesser” basketball. Most significantly, my other kids don’t want to sit in the bleachers for any longer than 45 minutes anyway.

It’s honestly fantastic. All sports should last about 45 minutes. Even if the game is lopsided, we get to leave before a kid asks me to buy them a refreshment.

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Tyler Wilson is a freelance writer, full-time student and parent to four kids, ages 7-13. He is tired. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.

    The Exhausted Dad