When my dad and I found out that the unholy duo (Ed "The Lord of the Dance" Hightower and Jim "Highwaters" Burr) would be working the Providence game, we resolved to be especially mean to them (my dad even considered busting out his h-bomb insult of "dumb jerk," which is a lot for him).

A little background: my dad is somewhat notorious in section 334 for being a great ref heckler. His voice is loud and piercing (much better than mine, which is too gruff at loud volumes to be understood), his timing is impeccable, and he usually says hilarious (but clean) things. As I mentioned above, "dumb jerk" or "buckethead" is about as profane as he gets.

Anyway, we were disappointed in the first half as Hightower and Burr stayed relatively under control. They must have not gotten warmed up, because despite a few questionable calls in the first, they didn't really try to take over the show until second half.

So as we're letting our irritation at Burr/Hightower stew in the second half, I notice that Jim Burr continually jacks up his pants so they're sitting a good 2 or 3 inches above his navel. When I pointed this out to my dad, he knew we'd found the chink in the armor. Once the game was firmly in hand, dad waited for the opportunity to strike. It came with about 2 minutes to play when Sosa stepped to the line for 2 shots. Jim, who had been working the opposite site of the court for most of the game, wandered over and stood at midcourt on our side. As the crowd quieted down (or started to leave) for Edgar's shot, my dad let fly:

"HIKE THOSE  PANTS UP, JIM! LOOKING GOOD, JIMMY!"

After Edgar hit the first one, my dad let another volley fly, but much to our delight, Jim reached up and scratched the side of his head facing us using only his middle finger. Yes, my dad got Jim Burr to lose his cool and flick him off during a game.

I've been asking my dad if he's going to retire from ref heckling, since I doubt it can get any sweeter than getting a guy like Burr to lose his cool like that. He says no - he thinks the bar's been raised to a new level, but that doesn't mean it's time to quit.

Did anyone else at the game happen to catch it (or hear it)?