(The first in a two part series)

You know the feeling. The feeling you get in the days leading up to an important game. A game you've been assigned with a partner you don't know. They must be okay; they were assigned the game. After all, you know your own abilities. You've worked hard. Coaches may not all like you but they respect the fact that you know the rules know how to apply the rules, treat them and their kids with respect, and perhaps most importantly, they describe you as "fair."

That feeling? That's the feeling Ernest (Ernie) Filiberti had when he arrived in Houston, in January of 1968.

In June of the previous summer, he had been assigned a game in Houston, Texas, by the "Pac 8" conference. The game didn't seem like a special assignment in June of 1967. But what unfolded, once he and his partner, Bobbie Scott, took the floor, is widely regarded as, "the game of the century," in college basketball.

Continued...