Longtime college basketball referee Karl Hess didn't like what he was hearing from Samford coach Scott Padgett during a game Thursday night. Hess decided to express his displeasure face to face.
Hess strode toward Padgett during a timeout late in Samford's Southern Conference loss at East Tennessee State. Padgett, who played eight seasons in the NBA, was ready.
"I literally said, 'Are you stepping to me right now?'" Padgett told reporters after the game.
Here's Karl Hess going after Scott Padgett pic.twitter.com/hMAM9PgBTL
— Mid-Major Madness (@mid_madness) January 4, 2019
Padgett wasn't worried about Hess taking things too far, given the size mismatch.
"If we're on the street, he's running the other way just if he sees me walking by," Padgett said. "I'm 6-9, probably 280 (pounds) right now. Not a lot of people step to me."
"Are you stepping to me right now?" TENSE moment tonight between official and Samford head coach, leading to some great postgame sound pic.twitter.com/kAUNdmxeb8
— Kane O'Neill (@WJHL_Kane) January 4, 2019
FLASHBACK: Ted Valentine turns back on UNC's Joel Berry II
Mark Zanetto of South Carolina Sports Monthly reported that Padgett gestured toward Southern Conference commissioner John Iamarino after the confrontation and said, "Do your job."
Neither Hess nor Iamarino had commented publicly as of early Friday.
