My freshman year at BYU we were playing in the flag football semi finals. This was before the age change for missions, so all of the kids on our team were like 18 and lived with us in old heritage.

We were playing against a team of guys who were all in their early to mid 20s. Our QB, my roommate, was really struggling, but our defense was outstanding with 3 picks, one of which was in the end zone that became a touchback and another which was a pick six. As a result, we were down 14-6 with like 8 seconds left. We got the ball back after an incredible defensive stand again with no timeouts deep in our own territory.

On the final play my roommate finally got it together and threw a beautiful deep pass right on target to the best kid on our team who was incredibly fast. He beat everyone to the end zone and scored, or so we thought. The ref ruled that our QB’s flag had been pulled before he threw, and that it was a sack resulting in the end of the game.

The thing was I was on the sideline and though it was close, it definitely looked like my roommate got the pass off before the flag was pulled. My roommate lost it though. I had never heard him curse in his life, but he immediately got in the guys face and started screaming all manner of profanities at him. His first lines were: “THAT’S f****** BS REF!!!

The ref, a dude who was a clear veteran at dealing with such antics, laughed in his face, drew a red card, and said “you’re banned for life buddy.” The laughing sent my roommate over the edge. He went to throw a punch, and was only prevented by me and a couple other teammates holding us him back. As we convinced him to leave he yelled, “the lifetime ban doesn’t matter, I’m going on a f- mission!!” He did in fact have his call to Texas at the time haha.

We still would have had to make the 2 point try to tie the game which would have been unlikely. But I have never seen him lose it like that since and we laugh about it now.